Life’s Origin

Life’s Origin
The Beginnings of Biological Evolution

Edited by

J. William Schopf

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

Berkeley . Los Angeles . London
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California

University of California Press, Ltd.

London, England

© 2002 by the Regents of the University of California

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Schopf, J. William, 1941—.

Life’s origin : the beginnings of biological
evolution / edited by J. William Schopf.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-520-23390-5 (alk. paper).—ISBN 0-520-
23391-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Life—Origin I. Title.

QH325.L694 2002
576.83—dc21 2002002071

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The paper used in this publication meets the mini-

mum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992
(R 1997) (Permanence of Paper).
Contents
Introduction: The What, When, and How of
Life’s Beginnings 1
J. William Schopf

1. Historical Understanding of Life’s Beginnings 7

John Oró
What Is Life? 7
Beliefs and Hypotheses on the Origin of Life 12
Chemical Evolution 15
Personal Reminiscences 20
Cosmological Evolution and the Origin of Life 25
The Earth-Moon System 29
Exploration of the Solar System 35
Life beyond the Solar System 37
Epilogue 39
References 41

2. From Big Bang to Primordial Planet: Setting

the Stage for the Origin of Life 46
Alan W. Schwartz and Sherwood Chang
Introduction 46
Origin of the Biogenic Elements 48
Origin of the Solar System 50
Earth 64
Further Reading 75

3. Formation of the Building Blocks of Life 78

Stanley L. Miller and Antonio Lazcano
Introduction 78
The Heterotrophic Origin of Life 81
Prebiotic Synthesis of Amino Acids 84
Prebiotic Synthesis of Nucleic Acid Bases 92
Prebiotic Synthesis of Sugars 98
 Hydrothermal Vents and the Origin of Life 100
Extraterrestrial Organic Compounds and
Prebiotic Evolution 103
An Autotrophic Origin of Life? 105
Have Too Many Cooks Spoiled the Soup? 107
References 109

4. From Building Blocks to the Polymers of Life 113

James P. Ferris
The Biopolymers in the First Life 113
The RNA World: The Prebiotic Synthesis of RNA 120
The Role of Polypeptides in the Origin of Life 126
Conclusions 135
References 137
Further Reading 139

5. The Origin of Biological Information 140

Leslie E. Orgel
Introduction 140
The RNA World 142
What’s Wrong with the Molecular Biologist’s Dream? 150
The Metabolist Argument 154
Conclusion and Outlook 154
References 155

6. When Did Life Begin? 158

J. William Schopf
Introduction 158
Evidence from Living Organisms 159
Evidence from the Rock Record 166
When Was Earth Ready for Life? 174
The What and When of Life’s Beginnings 178
Further Reading 178

List of Contributors 181

Glossary 185

Index 205
i n t ro du c t i o n

The What, When, and How

of Life’s Beginnings
j. w i l l i a m s c h o p f

In this news-conscious age, everyone knows the journalist’s litany of

prime questions: who, what, when, where, why, how. About the origin
of life, scientists’ questions are similar, but more restricted. Setting aside
the who (no humans were on hand to observe the event), the where
(unanswerable except in the broadest terms—on Earth, in water, prob-
ably in oceans), and the why (a question posed by philosophers and the-
ologians, not scientists), we are left with the three great puzzles this
volume addresses: What is the origin of life, when did it begin, and how?
At first blush, the what seems easy to answer: Surely, we can posit a
primal protoplasmic globule, a first speck of living matter. But the answer
is not so simple. Just as the colors of a rainbow merge imperceptibly
one into another, the transition to life from nonlife is a seamless con-
tinuum. Some researchers define life as an interacting combination of a
particular set of chemicals. Others consider it a highly ordered, intri-
cately complex information-processing system. Still others insist upon a
full-blown living cell. Consensus is elusive. Although the extremes of
the continuum are sharp and clear, the dividing line between nonlife and
life is blurred.
Surprisingly, deciphering the when of life’s beginnings is even more
vexing. Life’s origin ought to be easy to date— trace the fossil record
back to a time when the record peters out, and, voilà, that’s when life
began. But Nature has proven uncooperative, for it is the rock record
that peters out, not the evidence of life. Over time, Earth’s rock record

1
2 Introduction

has been weathered away and lost by the geologic cycle of uplift, ero-
sion, burial, and pressure-cooking (followed by more uplift, erosion,
burial, and cooking); thus, few traces of the planet’s early history are
left today. However, of the slivers of ancient terrains that do remain,
most contain traces of life. This is important knowledge. By telling us
that life started remarkably early in the history of the planet, it suggests
that life’s origin happened more quickly— and much more easily— than
we otherwise might have imagined. But it has a downside. Hidden deep
in the recesses of Earth’s past, dating from a time for which no surviv-
ing rocks can tell the story, hard evidence not only of life’s beginning
but the life-generating event itself seems lost forever.
Of the three great puzzles, the how of life’s beginnings has been
plumbed most deeply. But here, too, the answer is hazy. (Were it not,
the names of the Nobel Prize–winning researchers would be familiar
to us all and this book would be quaintly dated.) But given the depth
of this problem and the role it plays in understanding where living sys-
tems (humans included) fit in the natural order, it is not surprising that
this great mystery is as yet unsolved.
Until fairly recently, the origin of life was sacrosanct territory, the
exclusive province of theologians. These limits were breached in 1953
when Stanley Miller announced a breakthrough discovery. He showed
that amino acids like those present in living systems can be made eas-
ily, in a matter of days, from very simple ingredients, in the total absence
of life. Carried out under conditions designed to mimic those of the
primitive Earth, his experiments were the first to show a plausible way
that potentially life-generating organic molecules could have formed
before life got started. Yet even with this impetus, the subject remained
taboo in some quarters. For example, the late Sidney Fox, a pioneer in
origin-of-life studies, liked to remind his colleagues that in the mid-
1950s, the fledgling National Science Foundation refused his request
for funding— not on scientific grounds, but to avoid being torn asunder
by fundamentalists in Congress. Since that time, the origin of life has
gained its rightful place among the great unsolved questions of science.
Ironically, however, the flood of new research has pointed up just how
complicated the problem is. This, too, is unsurprising. In science, the
devil is often in the details: Time and again, simple, first-found solu-
tions turn to dust as further work uncovers new layers of unexpected
complexity.
Savants have long pondered what life is and how it differs from inan-
imate matter. How did the ancients explain its origin? How and by
Introduction 3

whom did modern studies get started? Where do living systems fit in
the cosmic panorama? And if life exists beyond the Earth, how can it
be discovered? These are the subjects of chapter 1, an introduction to
the volume that spans a breadth of issues addressed in greater depth
in later chapters. But this essay is more than an overview. Written in a
highly personal vein that shows a human side of science rarely revealed
in the scientific literature, it should remind us that the search for life’s
beginnings is an enterprise carried out by researchers whose manifest
zeal reflects deep-seated human feelings — scientists who are themselves
more than a little in awe of the prize they seek, an understanding of
their own deep roots.
Where does the problem of the origin of life stand today? As this
volume shows, quite a lot is known, at least in broad outline. So even
though detailed understanding has yet to be achieved, the main story
of life’s beginnings is abundantly clear: Life is a natural outcome of the
evolution of cosmic matter. Thus, the narrative begins not on Earth,
but in the interiors of distant stars, not with molecules of living cells,
but with the nucleosynthesis billions of years ago of a particular small
cluster of life-generating (biogenic) chemical elements— carbon, hy-
drogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorus (CHONSP) — ele-
ments that combined to form the biochemicals of every earthly living
system. This story, from the genesis of the biogenic elements to their
bonding into bodies of the Solar System, Earth included, is the focus
of chapter 2, a magnificent tour through the evolution of the cosmos
from the Big Bang to the formation of our planet.
With the stage set for the origin of life— on a lifeless, wave-washed,
volcanic rocky planet— chapter 3 shows how the first of three critical
steps toward life’s beginnings may have taken place. Not only is all life
mostly composed of atoms of CHONSP, but in every living system these
elements always make up the same special suite of building-block mol-
ecules, or monomers—amino acids, sugars, purines, pyrimidines, and
the like. So, just as life could not exist without CHONSP, life without
these monomers (or compounds similar enough to them to take their
place) is all but inconceivable. Laboratory work shows that these cru-
cial building blocks could easily have formed in a variety of settings
on the primordial Earth. While some laboratory protocols are more
efficient than others and some more closely represent the lifeless prim-
itive environment, all give products similar to biologic molecules if (as
on the early Earth) free oxygen, a poison to such systems, is in scant
supply. Of all parts of the origin-of-life scenario, this first step, the
4 Introduction

nonbiologic buildup in Earth’s early oceans of chemically simple organic

monomers, is best understood.
But life, of course, is far more than a collection of simple monomers.
Almost all of life’s key compounds are polymers, large molecules such
as carbohydrates, proteins, and gene-carrying DNA. Though such
polymers can be huge, containing millions of atoms, they are often
surprisingly uncomplicated —slender threadlike strands made up of
regular sets of simple subunits strung together like colored beads on
meandering strings. Here, again, the relative simplicity and chemical
sameness of all life points the way in origin-of-life research. Not only
is all life mostly CHONSP, always present in the same small suite of
building-block monomers, but the same kinds of monomers are linked
together in all organisms to form the same few kinds of polymers. The
step from monomeric building blocks to the polymers of life, the sec-
ond of the three critical steps in life’s beginnings and the subject of
chapter 4, is thus among the most important in unraveling how life
got started. But it is also one of the most challenging. Cells build poly-
mers by adding monomers, one at a time, to the end of a growing
polymeric chain, a process speeded by enzymes and powered by cel-
lular energy that gives off a molecule of water every time a monomer
is added. But neither cellular energy nor complicated enzymes were
present on the lifeless planet. And since polymer formation requires
the removal of water from the growing chain, the buildup of polymers
in the watery milieu of the early ocean would have been quite a feat—
akin to drying one’s hands on a sopping washcloth. Still, several
prebiotic ways have been devised to turn the trick. Among these, the
most ingenious and perhaps likely is the assembly of such polymers
on particles of clay like those sedimented at the margins of shallow
lagoons. Though this part of the puzzle is not as clearly defined as
monomer formation, a plausible pathway to polymer formation seems
reasonably well worked out.
Chapter 5 addresses the third major step in the life-generating sce-
nario, the nonbiologic formation of gene-like, information-containing
molecules. Though arguably the most crucial step, it is only partly un-
derstood. Origin-of-life research is driven by the chemical sameness of
all life a uniformity that extends to the organization of cells. And just
as all cells are made up of nearly identical suites of chemical elements,
monomers, and polymers, sameness also characterizes the way they
work. All are based on but a single kind of informational gene-carrying
polymer, the nucleic acid DNA. The life-directing message encoded
Introduction 5

chemically in DNA is transferred to another kind of nucleic acid, RNA,

which carries the information to tiny bodies in the cell, where it is
used to make proteins such as enzymes. This intricate system is much
too complicated to date from life’s beginnings; moreover, DNA itself
is advanced, the evolutionary descendant of earlier evolved polymers
of RNA. So the present-day DNA–RNA–protein system of life seems
likely to have been rooted in an earlier system of organization — that
of the “RNA World,” in which molecules of RNA served as the sole
carriers of genetic information. But herein lies the rub: RNA could not
have been plentiful on the lifeless Earth unless the sugar ribose, one
of its prime components, was available in copious supply. And, as
laboratory experiments show, such a sugar abundance is highly
unlikely. So the RNA-based system must itself have been derived from
even earlier forms of life that, lacking both RNA and DNA, would
have been decidedly different from anything alive today. Therefore,
the biochemistry of living organisms can be expected to provide only
the most limited clues to how life began. In short, though a great deal
has been learned about the deep history of information-containing
gene-like systems, the origin of the RNA World is a subject ripe for
further research.
Taken together, the first five chapters present a plausible scenario of
how life got started. But they tell us little about what life forms emerged
first and when such life began. These key questions are addressed in
chapter 6. Three lines of evidence are brought to bear. First, the biol-
ogy of primitive microbes living today is used to identify traits that
date from near life’s beginnings, hints of what early life may have been
like. Second, life’s roots are traced back through the ancient fossil record
of tiny petrified cells and biochemical imprints left in rocks to show
what kinds of organisms were present early and how long life has
existed. Third, evidence from the formative stages of the planet’s his-
tory is used to shed light on when Earth’s early hostile environment
first became clement enough to harbor living systems. Collectively, the
evidence reveals that microbial life was diverse, flourishing, and pre-
sumably widespread as early as 3,500 million years ago — only a few
hundred million years after settings had become suitable for microbes
to gain a foothold—and that life on Earth evolved far and fast in a
remarkably short time.
As the essays in this volume show, an overall picture of how life
emerged is achieving ever-clearer focus. But the search for deep
knowledge of the processes involved, an understanding of the details
6 Introduction

of each step, is a work in progress. With active research dating only

from the 1950s, the field is young, vibrant, and advancing rapidly. Given
time, effort, and a continuing influx of imaginative students and fresh
ideas, we can one day fully answer the what, when, and how of life’s
beginnings.
chapter 1

Historical Understanding
of Life’s Beginnings
jo h n o r ó

what is life?
There are three major singularities in the world—the observable uni-
verse, life on Earth, and human beings. For the most part, we agree on
concepts of what the cosmos and human beings are, but we have
reached no consensus on what life is. It is easier to recognize life, in
all its common forms, than it is to define it. In 1976, during NASA’s
Viking Project to Mars, the late Carl Sagan and I were at the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, discussing this very
problem. Asked if we would actually recognize life on Mars were we
lucky enough to encounter it, Carl answered with ebullient humor:
“John! If a herd of elephants stampeded across the field in front of the
camera, we would not have any doubt about the existence of life on
the Red Planet. Is that simple enough?”
Well, perhaps. But barring stampeding elephants, probably not. Still,
life can be defined in relatively simple terms, as many encyclopedias
have done. A common definition, for example, is that “Life is a dynamic
state of organized matter characterized basically by its capacity for
adaptation and evolution in response to changes in the environment,
and its capacity for reproduction to give rise to new life. Such a state
is a consequence of metabolic reactions (anabolism and catabolism)
and of the interaction of the living organism with other organisms and
the environment.” More generally, however, we describe the nature of

7
8 John Oró

life in terms of the main attributes that characterize living systems, as

follows:

1. Dynamic, self-organized, independent structural entities

2. Made of water (H2O), the biogenic elements CHONSP
(carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, and phospho-
rus), and organic molecules
3. Able to extract and recycle matter and energy from the
environment
4. Self-reproducing by translation of stereospecific informa-
tional polymers
5. Adaptable and subject to mutation and evolution by natural
selection
6. Metabolize by self-regulated stereospecific catalytic reactions
7. May exhibit either unicellular organization or multicellular
organization and differentiation
8. Exhibit organismic growth and asexual or sexual reproduction
9. Dynamically interact with and sensorially respond to stimuli
10. May exhibit conscious thought, language, writing, and
technology.

The basic nature of life may seem obvious, rendering a formal def-
inition unnecessary or, at most, secondary in importance. However, a
definition of life’s attributes is pivotal to at least three areas of science—
studies of the origin of life, artificial life, and exobiology. Thus, from
a physicochemical point of view, A. Moreno (1998) has offered a def-
inition of a living system in tune with the principles of irreversible ther-
modynamics: “A type of dissipative chemical structure which builds re-
cursively its own molecular structure and internal constraints and
manages the fluxes of energy and matter that keep it functioning (by
metabolism), thanks to some macromolecular informational registers
(DNA, RNA) autonomously interpreted which are generated in a col-
lective and historical process (evolution).” In other words, we can say
that a living system is a self-maintained organic structure operating in
an aqueous medium as a self-regulated negentropic process that ex-
changes matter and energy with the environment and is capable of self-
reproduction, evolution by natural selection, and adaptation to the
environment.
Historical Understanding 9

Yet another definition has been offered by C. Grobstein (1965): “Life

is macromolecular, hierarchically organized, and characterized by repli-
cation, metabolic turnover, and exquisite regulation of a spreading cen-
ter of order in a less ordered universe.” But perhaps the shortest
definition of life is that proposed by L.E. Orgel (1973): “Living organ-
isms are CITROENS—Complex Information-Transforming Reproduc-
ing Objects that Evolve by Natural Selection.”
Alternatively, we could approach the definition of life by asking a
simple question: How would one describe the many different kinds of
life? In general, we could answer that there are at least ten different
kinds of life, each with its own definition:
1. Intelligent human life
2. Animal life (all kinds)
3. Plant life (all kinds)
4. Fungal life (all kinds)
5. Eukaryotic multicellular life
6. Eukaryotic unicellular life
7. Prokaryotic commensal and interdependent cellular life
8. Prokaryotic unicellular life
9. Complex and simple viruses
10. Subcellular and molecular life (self-replicating and
autocatalytic, having DNA, RNA, or functionally equivalent
informational macromolecules)

This list is not exhaustive, but it does implicitly recognize all possible
variations of symbiotic organisms (such as lichens) and other life forms
(for example, micoplasma). However, when we get to the realm of
viruses and subcellular and molecular life, the task of defining life be-
comes exceedingly tricky. When chemists look at viruses, they see a
complex organization of molecules. But when biochemists look at a
virus, they see something more. In addition to its complexity of nucleic
acids, DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) or RNA (ribonucleic acid), and a
few key proteins, they see an entity resembling a protobiont, a primi-
tive precellular living system, perhaps not greatly different from life
forms that existed on Earth 4,000 million years ago. This view of the
similarity between viruses and protobionts may not be generally ac-
cepted. But it seems to me that when talking about life of the precellular
RNA World, we are really talking about a level of organization like
10 John Oró

that of a virus. (As an aside, one of my students, Richard Carlin, has

measured the decreasing length of the polyadenylic tail of various RNA
viruses and plotted the age of the host they infect. Extrapolating, he
has estimated that life originated on Earth between 3,800 and 4,000
million years ago, a date consistent with most current estimates.)

Concepts about the Nature of Life

Concepts and statements about the nature of life date back to antiq-
uity. Consider the Greek philosopher Democritus (460 b. C. E.), who
said, “Life is the result of a special combination of atoms character-
ized by their constant mechanical movement.” In our own era, the
Russian biochemist A. I. Oparin said, “Life is a qualitatively peculiar
form of organization and movement of matter, which came about as a
result of a series of natural processes during a certain stage in the his-
tory of the Earth as part of a developmental process of the evolution
of matter” (Oparin 1986). And in his book What Is Life? the Nobel
Prize–winning Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger suggested that the
structure of life must be that of an aperiodic (nonuniform) crystal
(Schrödinger 1956). By Schrödinger’s time, it had become apparent that,
in fact, “life is chemistry” and that the basic material of heredity is the
helical, ladder-like compound DNA. The discovery of DNA showed
that some biological molecules are capable of making copies of them-
selves. In reality, the aperiodic repetitive crystal structure suggested by
Schrödinger is the same as that modeled by James Watson and Francis
Crick—a crystal of the molecule of DNA, the “essence of life” (Margulis
and Sagan 1997). Of course, definitions of life are sometimes of a
lighter vein. One Hindu proverb, for instance, has it that “Life is a
bridge—cross it, but don't build a house on it.”

Is All Life Based on Carbon?

To date, we have but one example of life—life on Earth. So we can-

not prove that life must be based on carbon. In principle, we are in no
position to judge because we have only the statistics of a single exam-
ple. However, if we reflect on all we know about life, it is very diffi-
cult to imagine the existence of any kind of life that is not based on
the materials of which we ourselves are made—water (H2O) and the
biogenic elements (CHONSP). Once I was giving a lecture on the ori-
gin of life and the possibility of life beyond the Solar System when Carl
Historical Understanding 11

Sagan spoke up, interrupting my presentation: “But John! Could we

not have a life based on tungsten, for instance?” I answered, “Carl, I
don’t think so, but if that were the case, the ball is in your court. Please,
show me!” For a short while, I let the answering silence speak for it-
self; then I had to explain the inherent impossibility of life based on
tungsten, a heavy metal: Chemically, no heavy metal is capable of per-
forming the functions that carbon serves. (Equally improbable is any
kind of life existing in a vacuum, as Freeman Dyson proposed at a recent
meeting of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life,
or of a “living clay,” as Graham Cairns-Smith has conjectured.)
I am persuaded that the secret of this mystery, this singularity we call
life, resides fundamentally in organic chemistry—that is, in the capacity
of organic structures to react and interact in a self-organized manner.
And organic chemistry is based, in turn, on the prime property of the el-
ement carbon, which can combine not only with itself but with all the
other biogenic elements to generate molecular structures of great diversity.
It is this profusion of combinations, catalytic activities, and interactions
that operates in the aqueous and lipid-rich environment of cells.
The fundamentals of organic chemistry give life an upside and a
downside, building cells from carbon compounds and breaking down
biochemicals when an organism dies. And both sides are important.
Indeed, the fact that Earth’s ecology continuously recycles the con-
stituent elements of life is critical. In the energy cycle of life, carbon
dioxide (CO2) is fixed in a plant by the light-powered process of pho-
tosynthesis (light energy  CO2  H2O S CH2O  O2); then the
plant, with its organic nutrients, is eaten by an animal. Taking oxygen
(O2) from the atmosphere, the animal oxidizes the nutritious organic
matter to obtain energy (O2  CH2O S CO2  H2O  energy), then
returns CO2 to the atmosphere. If life were silicon-based, instead of
giving off gaseous CO2 into the environment, the process would yield
crystalline silicon dioxide (SiO2)—sand. Being a solid, SiO2 would sim-
ply accumulate, thereby prohibiting a biogeochemical cycle! (The same
would be true were tungsten to be substituted for carbon. Such differ-
ences apply, of course, only to conditions at the surface of the Earth,
not necessarily to those of much hotter settings, such as the cores of
stars, where SiO2 would be a gas.)
In short, it is difficult to conceive of a kind of life that is not based
primarily on the six biogenic elements—the prime elements that make
up the nucleic acids, sugars, proteins, phospholipids, and all the
enzymes and coenzymes on which Earthlife depends. To these critical
12 John Oró

elements, we should add various metallic ions (for example, magne-

sium, iron, and zinc), which are central to the structures of chlorophyll,
cytochromes, hemoglobin, and numerous enzymes. But life as we know
it is CHONSP. And, as far as we now know, CHONSP-life is the only
life there is.

BELIEFS AND HYPOTHESES ON THE ORIGIN OF LIFE

Materialism and Idealism

Quite a number of ancient writings address the origin and nature of life
from a materialistic or idealistic point of view. The Indian vedas and
upanishads, for example, consider as a fact the existence of particles of
life that pervade the universe. Similar concepts were developed in
greater detail by the ancient Greeks (particularly, Thales, Anaxagoras,
Democritus, Epicurus, and their followers). The best known of the
Greek philosophers (at least in today’s world) are the Socratics—Plato
(427?–347 b.c.e.) and his pupil Aristotle (384–322 b.c.e.)—whose
thinking was suffused with idealism. For Plato, a pure idealist, every-
thing in the natural world derived from nonmaterial eternal ideas.
Aristotle modified Plato’s ideas to embrace a form of dualism. He ar-
gued that the material world has its own existence and should be in-
tensively described. But he also maintained that living beings, in addi-
tion to having material substance, are endowed with a vital principle,
an entelechy (from the Greek entelecheia), that regulates and directs the
vital processes of each organism. This entelechy is nonmaterial and there-
fore undiscoverable by scientific investigation. In contrast, the pre-
Socratic Thales (640?–546 b.c. e.) thought that water, the most perva-
sive element of matter, was the origin of all things, including life. (Indeed,
the impressive power of the waters, from the life-giving Nile to the
oceans that envelop the world, still shapes human thinking. Consider,
for example, the inhabitants of Papua New Guinea’s Trobriand islands,
who believe that human life is conceived through spirits that float in the
ocean when young women and men bathe in the South Pacific waters.)

Creationism

After the conquests of Alexander the Great (356–323 b.c.e.), who was
the pupil of Aristotle, the philosophic traditions of ancient Greece met
and clashed with a different cosmogenic idea from the Near East. The
Semitic People of the Book found in their sacred scriptures a supernatural
Historical Understanding 13

source of all life on Earth, including humans. For the adherents first of
Judaism, then Christianity and Islam, the world is a creation, the handi-
work of a single Creator. When, through the agency of Rome, the Judeo-
Christian tradition (seasoned with Greek idealism) spread to Europe in
the Common Era, its cosmogeny informed the thinking of all Western
natural philosophers. Indeed, the mystery of life is so great, and the
biblical tradition so powerful, that creationism (in its diverse forms)
continues into the modern era. Newton (1642–1727), who originated
present-day physics and invented the calculus, spent many years trying
to prove the existence of God. And in our own century, many promi-
nent scientists continue to bow, sometimes gingerly, before a Creator.
Erwin Schrödinger remarked that “life is the work of the fine and pre-
cise creation of the quantum mechanics of our Lord” (see Oparin 1986),
and Sir John Eccles has written that “evolutionary Darwinism culminates
by the infusion in the brain of Homo sapiens sapiens of the soul by our
Creator” (Eccles 1991).

Spontaneous Generation

From ancient times almost to the present century, the belief that many or-
ganisms could originate from inert matter was common. Early Egyptians,
for instance, thought that life arose from the muds of the Nile. This be-
lief was widespread throughout the Renaissance. For instance, the Belgian
physician and chemist Jan Baptista van Helmont (1580–1644) provided
a detailed recipe for generating mice in 21 days from open jars stuffed
with soiled underwear and kernels of wheat.
Spontaneous generation, the idea that life can originate all at once
from dead matter, remained entrenched until the nineteenth century,
when Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) made his discoveries. In addition to
studying the process of fermentation, discovering the germs that cause
many diseases, developing vaccines, and inventing pasteurization (the
method of sterilization named in his honor), Pasteur investigated spon-
taneous generation experimentally. Studying various solutions heated
in swan-necked flasks, he firmly refuted the theory. In Pasteur’s view,
living systems could arise only from other living systems: Omni vivum
ex vivum, omni ovo ex ovo.

Cosmic Panspermia and the Life Cloud

The existence throughout Nature of a fundamental “carrier of life” was

expressed in the earliest Hindu sacred writings, the vedas, and formulated
14 John Oró

more fully by the Greek philosopher Anaxagoras (500?–428 b.c.e.).

Anaxagoras embraced the concept of panspermia, the idea that life ex-
ists everywhere. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, sev-
eral investigators, most notably the Swedish physicist and chemist Svante
August Arrhenius (1859–1927), proposed that, given Pasteur’s refuta-
tion of spontaneous generation, life must have originated extraterrestri-
ally. Arrhenius suggested that just as organic matter could be transported
on meteorites coursing through the Solar System (as first shown in the
1830s by Berzelius’s analysis of organic matter in the Aläis carbonaceous
meteorite), the germs of life could be transported between the stars by
the radiation pressure of starlight.
A more recent version of this hypothesis was proposed by Francis
Crick and Leslie Orgel. They have suggested the possibility of “di-
rected” panspermia—the introduction of life to Earth by intelligent be-
ings, implanted either directly or by robotic means. The latter, in fact,
may already have happened, at least from Earth to other bodies of the
Solar System. Microbes carried on our automated spacecraft may have
contaminated other planets, such as Mars. And the transport of small
rocky fragments from one body of our Solar System to another is a re-
ality, as meteorites have come to Earth from the Moon and Mars. What
has not yet been demonstrated is an occurrence of interplanetary
panspermia, the delivery of a viable life form from one planetary body
to another. Furthermore, the theory of cosmic panspermia offers no
solution to the origin of life: It simply relegates that process to an un-
defined setting in some unknown place at some indeterminant time else-
where in the cosmos.
An extreme expression of the concept of cosmic panspermia is that
proposed by Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe. Seizing on the
similarity between the infrared spectrum of interstellar dust and that
measured on preparations of the common human gut bacterium
Escherichia coli, they argue that interstellar dust is a “life cloud” com-
posed largely of bacteria. Some years ago, during a luncheon at Rice
University in Houston, I tried to explain the impossibility of this hy-
pothesis to Fred Hoyle. I pointed out that the spectral similarity is only
partial. Moreover, such a degree of similarity is exactly what we should
expect, given the bacterium-like suite of biogenic elements present in
interstellar dust (shown in table 1.1), an elemental composition shown
by several investigators, most recently by Delsemme (2000).
In 1981, I took part in a debate on comets and the origin of life at
the University of Maryland as part of a scientific meeting organized by
Historical Understanding 15

TABLE 1.1 PERCENTAGES OF ELEMENTS IN LIFE

COMPARED WITH THOSE IN INTERSTELLAR FROST
AND COMETS

Interstellar Volatiles in
Elements Bacteria Mammals Frost Comets

Hydrogen 63.1 61.0 55 56

Oxygen 29.0 26.0 30 31
Carbon 6.4 10.5 13 10
Nitrogen 1.4 2.4 1 2.7
Sulfur 0.06 0.13 0.8 0.3
Phosphorus 0.12 0.13 — 0.08
Calcium — 0.23 — —
Adapted from Delsemme (2000).

the late Cyril Ponnamperuma (1981). I asserted that the life cloud idea
presented earlier in the meeting by Dr. Wickramasinghe was “utter non-
sense.” A few days later, my remarks were reported in the New York
Times by a science writer present at the meeting. Now, some two
decades later, my opinion remains unchanged. Moreover, even were it
to prove correct, the general hypothesis of panspermia, as promoted
by Arrhenius, Hoyle, Wickramasinghe, and others, would in no way
account for the origin of life. Rather, it would relocate the problem to
another time and place in the cosmos but beyond the reach of experi-
mental inquiry and serious scientific investigation.

CHEMICAL EVOLUTION

A. I. Oparin, J. B. S. Haldane, and J. D. Bernal

In 1967, during the Seventh International Congress of Biochemistry in

Tokyo, I asked Alexandr Ivanovich Oparin how he had arrived at the
idea of chemical evolution as an explanation for the origin of life.
He replied that the basis of the idea came from Dimitry Mendeleev
(1834–1907), the Russian chemist who devised the periodic table.
According to Mendeleev, the petroleum in Earth’s crust was generated
when superheated water from the interior of the planet passed through
geological strata that contained iron carbides (carbon–metal com-
pounds). The reaction with these carbides produced the hydrocarbons
(organic compounds composed solely of atoms of hydrogen and car-
bon) of which petroleum is composed. Professor Oparin said that when
16 John Oró

he became interested in the problem in his student days, he simply took

Mendeleev’s idea a step further. He hypothesized that, on the primitive
Earth, the reaction of water with carbide and similar chemical reac-
tions formed many kinds of organic compounds from which life arose
through a long process of chemical evolution. This, he thought, might
provide the “missing first chapter” to Darwin’s great book on the
evolutionary history of life.
We know today that petroleum is a result of the decay of living mat-
ter, not a product of reaction between hot percolating waters and iron
carbides. But it is interesting that, through serendipity, Oparin was able
to develop a reasonable hypothesis from a partially incorrect one.
Partially, because, even though petroleum is unquestionably the decay
product of living systems, Mendeleev’s idea was not far off the mark.
In my laboratory, we have produced small yields of deuterated low-
molecular-weight aliphatic hydrocarbons by reacting iron carbides with
deuterium-tagged water or deuterium chloride.
New discoveries notwithstanding, it was the synergistic interaction
of concepts proposed by two particularly creative scientists—Mendeleev
in chemistry and Charles Darwin (1809–1882) in biology—that led
Oparin to his idea of how life began. Oparin’s final scientific paper
(Oparin 1986), published six years after his death, critically reviews
various hypotheses of the origin of life. And his words still resonate:

We can conclude that the different forms of life are not the result of a
process having a determined finality developed a priori by a creative plan,
nor are they the result of a chance fortuitous act. Life emerged as the
result of natural evolutionary processes, as a new form of movement of
matter during its process of development. The study of this process
allows us to know, with a scientific base, the essence of life and its
qualitative difference from the world of inorganic matter.

In the late 1920s, a hypothesis very similar to Oparin’s was developed

independently by the English biologist J. B. S. Haldane. He and Oparin
proposed that the origin of life on Earth was preceded by a period of
nonbiological molecular evolution. The Oparin-Haldane hypothesis as-
sumes that, during and after Earth’s formation, simple carbon com-
pounds were transformed into increasingly more complex ones by
means of heat and solar radiation. In addition, Oparin proposed that,
after the production of organic compounds of fairly high molecular
weight, a phase separation occurred, resulting in formation of micro-
scopic organic droplets (colloidal coacervates). These coacervates were
Historical Understanding 17

able to selectively accumulate simple organic compounds from the

environment, thereby giving rise to chemically coupled reactions of in-
creasing complexity—reactions that were, in important respects, simi-
lar to those of living systems. This phase separation made primitive
competition possible and established a type of natural selection among
pre-life, protobiont droplets. From such competition, an ancestral cell
able to undergo Darwinian evolution would eventually emerge, mark-
ing the start of true biological evolution.
Darwin traveled the world, seeing it with his own eyes. As the nat-
uralist aboard H.M.S. Beagle, he made an extraordinary number of
observations that allowed him to compare various living species. Oparin
traveled little, but read much. Absorbing multiple philosophical and
scientific publications, he sought to fit pertinent scientific discoveries
into his central idea of prebiological chemical molecular evolution, it-
self the offspring of a marriage of Mendeleev’s and Darwin’s theories.
Further insight into the development of Oparin’s ideas can be found in
two excellent reviews, one by Oparin himself (1986), the other by
Antonio Lazcano (1992).
Another very similar hypothesis about prebiotic chemical evolution
was presented in the late 1940s by Professor J. D. Bernal of Birbeck
College, London. Known for his work in crystallography and his writ-
ings on the social relevance of science—notably, The Social Function
of Science (Bernal 1939) and World without War (Bernal 1958)—Bernal
was also the chairman of the World Council for Peace. In 1949, he
published an influential paper, “The Physical Basis of Life” (Bernal
1949), which he expanded into a book of the same title (Bernal 1951).
Later he summarized his ideas in another book, The Origin of Life
(Bernal 1967). This book contains several appendixes, including a trans-
lation of Oparin’s 1924 Proiskhozhedenie Zhizni and a reprinting of
Haldane’s seminal 1929 publication. Bernal’s own contributions em-
phasized the properties of clays as potential catalysts in chemical re-
actions (discussed in chapter 4) and the role of organic lipids in phase
separation and the formation of cell-enclosing membranes. Unlike many
others at the time, he also considered primitive Earth’s capture of
organic molecules from comets and meteorites important.

The First Experiments

In 1936, Oparin published a book that expanded on his earlier views.

When Sergius Morgulis translated this book into English (Oparin 1938),
18 John Oró

Oparin’s views became better disseminated but did not gain the inter-
national scientific community’s full acceptance. Among those who dis-
missed the relevance of nonbiological syntheses to the origin of life was
Melvin Calvin of the University of California, Berkeley. Together with
several colleagues, he published the results of a preliminary experiment
on the irradiation of a “primitive atmosphere” by high-energy helium
ions (Garrison et al. 1951). Calvin was a biochemist whose work fo-
cused on the fixation of CO2 by photosynthesis in plants (work for
which he received a Nobel Prize). Therefore, he did not follow Oparin’s
proposal of a highly reducing atmosphere of methane (CH4), hydro-
gen (H2), water vapor (H2Oc), and ammonia (NH3). Rather, he used
a mixture of CO2, H2, and H2Oc. Because no nitrogen was present,
no amino acids (characterized by the amino group, NH2) were formed
(Calvin 1969). The experiment yielded small amounts of formaldehyde
(CH2O) and formic acid (HCOOH).
Another major scientist who became interested in this problem was
Harold Clayton Urey, a cosmochemist (and also a Nobel laureate) at
the University of Chicago. He was much involved in studies of Earth’s
primitive atmosphere. By 1952, he had come to Oparin’s conclusion—
that Earth’s primitive atmosphere must have been highly reducing, hav-
ing carbon in the form of CH4 instead of CO2 (Urey 1952). Obviously,
the Calvin group’s use of CO2 instead of CH4 opened them to criti-
cism, as Urey suggested in a lecture to the University of Chicago’s chem-
istry department. Among the attendees was a young Stanley L. Miller,
at that time a graduate student who had just completed his under-
graduate work at Berkeley.
Although Urey advised Miller to do his doctoral research on prob-
lems of inorganic cosmochemistry, Miller persuaded Urey to let him
work on the problem of organic synthesis on the primitive Earth in-
stead. In 1953 Miller carried out a now-classic experiment—he sub-
jected a reducing “primitive atmosphere” composed of CH4, H2, H2Oc,
and NH3 to the action of a continuous electric discharge for a period
of one week (Miller 1953, 1957).
Miller’s experiment showed for the first time that amino acids can be
produced under simulated “primitive Earth conditions” and that a num-
ber of these amino acids are of the kinds present in biological proteins.
Perhaps more significant, this and subsequent experiments showed that
many of the amino acids formed are comparable, both qualitatively and
quantitatively, to amino acids present in the Murchison meteorite, a car-
bonaceous “shooting star” that fell to Earth in 1969 near Murchison,
Historical Understanding 19

Australia. This striking similarity suggests that prebiotic processes sim-

ilar to those simulated in experiments such as Miller’s may have occurred
on the parent body from which the Murchison meteorite originated. As
expected, the amino acids formed in Miller’s experiments were present
as a racemic mixture. And in this mixture, they occur both in the con-
figuration in which they are present in proteins and in the nonbiologi-
cal mirror image of this configuration. It is possible that they differ
slightly in this regard from the Murchison amino acids, since recent
studies (Cronin and Pizzarello 1997; Pizzarello and Cronin 1998) show
that several amino acids in the meteorite vary by small amounts from
pure racemic mixtures. This observation requires further investigation.
But whether the Murchison amino acids prove to be completely or par-
tially racemic, the suite of amino acids present in the meteorite bears
marked similarities to that synthesized experimentally.
Miller’s 1953 experiment stands out not only in its primacy but in
its results. Because many of the types of amino acids produced are pres-
ent in proteins, they are of biological interest. Moreover, other kinds
of amino acids were also formed, nonbiological ones, a discovery that
demonstrates the cosmic prebiological relevance of the experiments.
This highly successful result ushered in a new era of experimental stud-
ies of prebiological chemistry, setting the stage for a decade of re-
markable progress in the science.
Indeed, the 1950s were extraordinary not only for the strides made
in prebiological chemistry but for the science of biochemistry in gen-
eral, advancing our knowledge of the essence, dynamics, and chemical
nature of living systems as well as our understanding of life’s origin.
In 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick proposed their double-helix
model of DNA, the key to understanding heredity and the genetic code.
Fred Sanger described the primary structure of a protein, Arthur
Kornberg achieved in vitro synthesis of DNA, and Severo Ochoa and
Marianne Grunberg-Manago discovered the specific enzyme—polynu-
cleotide phosphorylase—required for the biosynthesis of RNA. The
discovery in Ochoa’s laboratory of the RNA-biosynthesizing enzyme
polynucleotide phosphorylase was particularly important because it
was followed by another, almost serendipitous, discovery. Marshall
Niremberg and Heinrich Matthei, who had used polyU only as a con-
trol in their initial experiments, soon showed that the polynucleotide
phosphorylase enzyme also catalyzes the biosynthesis of polyuridylic
acid (polyU), the RNA messenger molecule responsible for building
polyphenylalanine (linked monomers of the amino acid phenylalanine).
20 John Oró

The discovery in Ochoa’s laboratory and the breakthrough made by

Niremberg and Matthei provided the key to unlock the genetic code.
Niremberg announced the way to crack the genetic code at the Fifth
International Congress of Biochemistry, held in Moscow in 1961. At
this same meeting, I also presented a paper, “Formation of Purines un-
der Possible Primitive Conditions,” an update of work carried out in
1959 (Oró 1960). This report offered a more complete story of our
studies of the prebiotic synthesis of adenine and the imidazole inter-
mediate compounds involved in its formation. My presentation built
on a series of similar talks I had given in the United States the previ-
ous year.

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES

The problem of the origin of life has occupied my attention since my

high school years, prior to and after the Spanish Civil War of 1936–39.
The heart of the story is that I was searching for the meaning of hu-
man existence—and, I must say, my being the son of a baker helped
me greatly in this endeavor.
As a youth in Lleida, Spain, I worked in my father’s bakery. In our
daily schedule, there was a free period of about an hour (from 4 to
5 o’clock in the morning) between the first and second batches of bread
making. There was no point in trying to go back to sleep for such a
short time. So, instead, I used the time to collect my thoughts, search
my conscience, and quietly reflect. Often on clear, dark nights, I would
gaze into the starry sky and ask myself the quintessential question: Is
it possible that another baker’s son is out there, on a planet circling
one of the myriad stars of the universe, asking the same question I am
asking now—“What in hell are we doing here?” Could I find the an-
swer in books, or perhaps by asking one of my high school teachers?
Fortunately, I had a good teacher in my biology class who sparked my
interest in the life sciences and started me thinking about the com-
plexity of the living process. My interest was further spurred by read-
ing Spanish translations of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species
(1859), Walther Löb’s Einführung in die Biochimie [Introduction to
Biochemistry] (1911), and Camille Flammarion’s La Pluralité des Mondes
Habités [The Plurality of Inhabited Worlds] (1917).
By the early 1940s, after the Spanish Civil War had ended and my fa-
ther and I had rebuilt the family’s ransacked business, it was time for me
Historical Understanding 21

to decide the course of my life. One especially fine day, I was walking
on the street near the bakery when it came, an answer to the existential
question that had been bugging me. “I know!” I said to myself, “I’ll de-
vote my life to the study of the origin of life!” In retrospect, I suspect
that my reading of the three books just noted led me in this direction.
Darwin and Löb had taught me that both complex living systems and
complex biomolecules evolved from simpler ones. And Flammarion had
sparked my interest in comets and offered the tantalizing possibility that
we may not be alone in the universe. As a direct consequence of this de-
cision, I graduated in chemistry from the University of Barcelona in 1947,
five years later. Some things changed: my parents passed away, I mar-
ried. But my decision held firm.
In August 1952, on arriving in New York City for the first time, I
visited Severo Ochoa in his laboratory at the New York University
School of Medicine. Professor Ochoa invited me to lunch, and I used
the opportunity to discuss with him my plans to study prebiotic chem-
ical evolution. I asked him if it would be worthwhile to study nonen-
zymatic reactions involving formaldehyde and other simple organic com-
pounds in the hope of discovering nonbiological pathways to the
synthesis of the most important building blocks of biological macro-
molecules—amino acids, purines, and pyrimidines. His answer was
wonderfully encouraging, providing support for the program of research
I would eventually carry out after completing my doctoral studies in
biochemistry. For my doctoral thesis at Baylor College of Medicine in
Houston, I investigated the biochemical incorporation of 14C-tagged for-
mate (a salt of formic acid, HCOOH) into the purines that in part make
up nucleic acids, and I studied the chemical mechanism of how formic
acid is oxidized in living systems. During this period, I read Stanley
Miller’s now-famous 1953 publication. Though pleased to learn of this
breakthrough, I was also shaken. I had not realized that anyone else
was carrying out experiments on prebiotic chemistry and the origin of
life. At the time, I knew nothing about the earlier experiments conducted
by Melvin Calvin and his associates (Garrison et al. 1951; Calvin 1969).
A year or so before I graduated from Baylor, I learned from our dean
that the department of chemistry at the University of Houston (UH)
needed a biochemist and had requested my services. I journeyed across
town, interviewed, and landed the job. As it turned out, they were in
dire need—in my first year at UH, I was assigned to teach two lecture
courses plus three laboratory courses. This left me little time to do
22 John Oró

research. But, inspired by Walther Löb’s book and heartened by Severo

Ochoa’s encouragement, I did manage to start the experiments I had
planned. My aim remained the same: to synthesize by nonbiological
means relatively complex biochemical compounds from simple carbon-
and nitrogen-containing starting materials.
Urea (CO[NH2]2) can be formed by heating ammonium cyanate
(NCONH4)—a reaction whose discovery by Friedrich Wöhler in the
1820s signaled the birth of organic chemistry (Leicester 1974). Moreover,
in the presence of strong bases such as sodium hydroxide, formaldehyde
(CH2O) can condense with itself to generate a great diversity of sugars,
a reaction first reported by Butlerow in the 1860s. Inspired by the
Darwinian concept of “complexity from simplicity,” I took my cue from
these discoveries. I investigated two types of reactions. First, using two
reactive compounds—formaldehyde (or the closely related paraformalde-
hyde) and hydroxylamine-HCl—I showed that a number of amino acids
and hydroxy acids could be made. Among the amino acids formed were
glycine, glycinamide, alanine, -alanine, serine, aspartic acid, and threo-
nine. Formic acid, acetic acid, glycolic acid, and lactic acid were also
formed. The mechanism of the reaction involved production of hydro-
gen cyanide and ammonia as reacting intermediate compounds, and the
first products formed were the corresponding amino acid amides, which
yielded the amino acids and other acids on hydrolysis (Oró et al. 1959).
The second group of reactions I studied involved hydrogen cyanide
(HCN), one of the major intermediates in Stanley Miller’s amino acid–
producing experiments, as well as those just described. Understanding
this work depends on three pertinent facts:

1. Cyanogen (C2N2), the parent radical that gives rise to hydro-

gen cyanide, is abundant both in comets and in the atmos-
phere of the Sun, an abundance suggesting that hydrogen
cyanide is probably widespread throughout the universe.
2. In 1875, the pioneering biochemist Eduard Pflüger had stated
that “the beginning of organic life . . . is to be found to a
very large degree in cyanogen. . . . [C]yanogen and its com-
pounds had much time and opportunity to follow their great
tendency for transformation and polymerization . . . into a
labile protein which constitutes living matter” (see Lazcano
1995).
3. By 1948, my colleague Emilio Duró and I had lost all fear of
handling industrial quantities of hydrogen cyanide, despite its
Historical Understanding 23

lethal toxicity. By that time, we had often used it as an inter-

mediate reactant in the manufacture of commercial amounts of
various pharmaceuticals (for example, mandelic acid).

Thus, I was ready to attack a question raised at the First International

Congress on Oceanography held in New York at the United Nations
in 1959. The nature of the polymeric material formed in Miller’s elec-
tric discharges experiments was as yet unstudied, but large amounts of
hydrogen cyanide had been produced. Was the polymer a product of
hydrogen cyanide?
Upon returning to Houston, I bubbled hydrogen cyanide gas into
an aqueous ammonia mixture. When I saw what was happening, it was
as though I had been transported back to primitive Earth. Pure alchemy
was taking place! Yellow bands or threads were formed as soon as the
gas entered the ammonium-charged solution. After a few minutes, the
color changed to orange, then reddish, then deep red, intensifying un-
til it was jet black. Watching the changes, I was astonished, but I later
found that the final product, the deep black compound, was indeed
polymerized hydrogen cyanide.
The relevance of this result to the chemistry of the cosmos seems
clear. We now know that the black polymeric hydrogen cyanide syn-
thesized in the laboratory is identical to the black dust that coats the
nuclei of comets, a blackness responsible for the low albedo of these so-
lar system objects. This laboratory synthesis took place in a five-liter
round-bottomed flask; but in 1994 we were able to observe almost the
same process on a cosmic scale, when the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9
(SL-9) fell, in 22 pieces, into the upper atmosphere of Jupiter. First,
bright yellowish impact areas were observed, some as large as Earth;
then, after a few days, these areas turned dark brown-black. I was among
the fortunate observers permitted to see these brown-black areas in
Jupiter’s atmosphere from the Pic-du-Midi observatory in France. I sug-
gested to the astronomers there that the coloration in the impact areas
consisted primarily of polymeric hydrogen cyanide—an idea supported
by the subsequent findings of N. Gautier and other astronomers, who
have detected HCN and related compounds on the SL-9 spots on Jupiter.
Returning to experimental chemistry in the laboratory, we know that
hydrogen cyanide is highly reactive. It can exist in a chemically neutral
form or in an ionized form. Thus, it can combine with itself in several
different ways. And, depending on how it combines, it can generate many
different kinds of compounds—polymers of hydrogen cyanide, amino
24 John Oró

acid nitriles, amides, adenine, and others. But the polymeric forms—and
one in particular, adenine—held my attention. Indeed, that adenine, one
of the two purines of DNA and RNA, is simply a polymer of hydrogen
cyanide is well illustrated by its original name. One of the first published
chemical analyses of this biologically important compound formally iden-
tified it as “pentameric hydrogen cyanide” (in German, pentamere
Cyansäure) because its elemental composition, H5C5N5, is exactly HCN
multiplied by five.
In the HCN-polymerization experiment carried out in our labora-
tory in the summer of 1959, paper chromatography revealed the pres-
ence of amino acids, amino acid amides, and other acids that had been
formed by hydrolytic breakdown of their corresponding nitriles. But
by means of a selective Gerlach-Döring test, I also identified very small
amounts of adenine. To confirm that adenine had indeed been formed
in the reaction, I concentrated the products of the reaction and char-
acterized adenine in several additional ways—first, by its ultraviolet
(UV) absorption in a paper chromatogram, then by a specific Gerlach-
Döring test. After isolating the compound from solution, I measured
its UV absorption spectrum and determined the melting point of crys-
tals prepared from one of its chemical derivatives, adenine picrate. All
five of these tests confirmed that adenine had been synthesized.
The mechanism of adenine synthesis from hydrogen cyanide in aque-
ous solutions of ammonia is now well known (Oró 1960, 1961; Oró
and Kimball 1961, 1962). And the synthesis of other purines (guanine,
xanthine, and hypoxanthine) in the presence of simple compounds de-
rived from hydrogen cyanide has also been studied in some detail.
Moreover, adenine—pentameric hydrogen cyanide, the same jet black
HCN polymer formed in the first set of experiments of 1959—is now
known to be formed directly, even at low temperatures—a chemistry
that explains why, as reported by Kissel and Krueger (1987), adenine
and other purines have been detected by mass spectrometry in the dust
from Halley’s comet (see table 1.2). Adenine can also be produced from
hydrogen cyanide and ammonia alone (Wakamatsu et al. 1966), by the
UV polymerization of hydrogen cyanide, by irradiation with electrons
(Ponnamperuma 1965; see also Oró 1965), and probably by the de-
hydrative polymerization of formamide, a mechanism first hypothesized
by Leslie Orgel.
Results obtained from experimental studies of the synthesis of amino
acids by formation of hydrogen cyanide from formaldehyde and other
reactants (Oró et al. 1959), and of the synthesis of adenine and other
Historical Understanding 25

TABLE 1.2 ORGANIC MOLECULES DETECTED IN

COMET HALLEY DUST GRAINS

C, H Compounds C, N, H Compounds C, O, H Compounds

Pentyne Hydrocyanic acid Formaldehyde

Hexyne Acetonitrile Acetaldehyde
Butadiene Propanenitrile Formic acid
Pentadiene Iminomethane Acetic acid
Cyclopentene Iminoethane Isocyanic acid
Cyclohexene Iminopropene Methanol imine
Cyclohexadiene Pyrrole, imidazole Oximidazole
Benzene Pyridine, pyrimidine Oxypyrimidine
Toluene Purine, adenine Xanthine
Adapted from Kissel and Krueger (1987).

compounds from the polymerization of hydrogen cyanide (Oró 1960),

led naturally to consideration of the role that HCN-rich comets
may have played in forming organic biochemicals on primitive Earth
(Oró 1961). According to the currently accepted hypothesis, the
Earth–Moon system is the result of the impact of a Mars-sized body
with the forming Earth (as discussed, for example, in chapter 2, and
by Cameron and Benz 1991). In combination with the detailed analy-
ses of the terrestrial planets summarized by Delsemme (2000), this hy-
pothesis is consistent with the idea that most of the water in Earth’s
hydrosphere, together with the organic compounds that contributed to
its earliest biosphere, came from cometary collisions with the primitive
Earth. This perspective is not entirely new. In the early 1960s, I realized
that the problem of the origin of life on Earth must be viewed not only
Earth-centrically, but cosmochemically, as well. Indeed, our chemical
studies at the University of Houston, sponsored by NASA for more
than 30 years, were based on a broad cosmochemical perspective
(Oró 1961, 1963). Table 1.3 summarizes the basis of our perspective—
the chemical relations between cometary molecules and the biochemi-
cals of which life is composed.

cosmological evolution and the origin of life

In recent years, discoveries of other planets, protoplanetary disks, and
galaxies by the Hubble telescope have confirmed the idea that the cos-
mos is expanding and introduced a new dimension to our understanding
of the origin of our Universe. This new knowledge is relevant to the
problem of the origin of life.
26 John Oró

TABLE 1.3 BIOCHEMICAL MONOMERS AND

PROPERTIES THAT CAN BE DERIVED FROM
COMETARY MOLECULES

Cometary Formulas and Biochemical Monomers

Molecules Reactants and (Properties)

1. Hydrogen H2 (Reducing agent)

2. Water H2O (Universal solvent)
3. Ammonia NH3 (Amination and catalysis)
4. Carbon monoxide CO (H2) Fatty acids
5a. Formaldehyde CH2O Ribose and glycerol
5b. Aldehydes RCHO (HCN  NH3) Amino acids
6. Hydrogen sulfide H2S (other precursors) Cysteine and methionine
7. Hydrogen cyanide HCN Purines and amino acids
8. Cyanoacetylene HC3N (cyanate) Pyrimidines
9. Phosphatea PO43 Phosphates and
nucleotides
10. Cyanamideb H2NCN Oligonucleotides
a
In interplanetary dust particles.
b
Not yet detected in comets.

Major stages in the evolution of the cosmos are summarized in table

1.4, based on the currently favored inflationary model of cosmology
(Guth 1994, 1997). Some 300,000 years after the Big Bang, the initial
primordial explosion, free atomic nuclei and electrons condensed to
form matter and the Universe became transparent to light energy (pho-
tons). At this point, cosmochemistry became pertinent to nuclear chem-
istry, to stellar and interstellar chemistry, and, over time, to the origin
of life on Earth.
In the mid-1800s, Darwin showed how the concept of evolution by
natural selection applies to living systems. But evolution also operates
in the inanimate world, not only Earth but the Universe as a whole,
including all cosmic bodies (galaxies, stars, circumstellar and interstel-
lar clouds, interstellar molecules, planetary systems, planets, comets,
asteroids, meteorites) and all chemical elements. Comets transported
organic molecules and water to the primitive Earth early in the planet’s
history, presumably over a period of several hundred million years. In
the oceans that then formed, both cometary and terrestrial (those syn-
thesized directly in the early environment) organic molecules evolved
by natural selection, ultimately giving rise to life—possibly in the
“warm little pond” that Darwin envisioned in his famous letter to
Joseph Hooker (see chapter 3). The linkage from cosmic elements to
Historical Understanding 27

TABLE 1.4 BIG BANG INFLATIONARY THEORY MODEL

OF THE UNIVERSE

Time Processes

Forces 1043 seconds Gravity separates from other forces

1033 seconds Electroweak, strong nuclear, and gravity
forces operate
1010 seconds Weak nuclear and electromagnetic forces
separate
Matter 106 seconds Quarks combine to form particles
3 minutes Light atomic nuclei (such as H, He, Li) form
300,000 years Free nuclei and electrons condense to
neutral atoms; Universe becomes
transparent to photons
1 million years H and He atoms form protogalaxies and stars

Adapted from Oró (1998); see also Guth (1994, 1997).

cometary molecules to primitive Earth to biological evolution ties cos-

mochemical evolution to the origin of life.

Nuclear Synthesis of the Biogenic Elements

From a chemist’s point of view, one of the most creative processes in

the evolution of the Universe was the nuclear synthesis of the elements.
This synthesis took place in several stages—first, during the Big Bang
as the Universe began, then in the cores of stars, and later in super-
nova explosions.
About three minutes after the Big Bang, free nuclei of hydrogen and
helium were generated. After more than a million years had passed,
giant clouds of hydrogen and helium condensed by gravitational at-
traction to form stars, which clustered into protogalaxies. In the hot
cores of the newly formed stars, the various low-mass elements were
synthesized. Most of the higher-mass elements were generated much
later, typically in gigantic supernova explosions, which mark the end of
a star’s existence. As new stars are born and old stars die, the genesis
of light and heavy elements continues.
Spectra gathered by astronomical observatories tell us that the Uni-
verse is composed almost entirely—about 98 percent—of hydrogen (H)
and helium (He). The other elements (more than a hundred) amount to
just 2 percent; but half of that small fraction, about 1 percent of the
total, comprises carbon (C), oxygen (O), nitrogen (N), sulfur (S), and
28 John Oró

phosphorus (P). Thus, about 99 percent of the Universe is composed of

helium plus the six biogenic elements, CHONSP. Thus, in terms of the
origin of life, the genesis of the biogenic elements was probably the most
important event in cosmochemistry. Table 1.5 summarizes the nuclear
reactions that led to their nucleosynthesis (Macià et al. 1997).

Helium, Carbon, and Energy for Life

Helium nuclides, first synthesized during the Big Bang, are produced
during star formation by a sequence of reactions known as the proton–
proton chain (table 1.5). This sequence occurs in the cores of many or-
dinary stars, including the Sun, at about 15 million degrees Celsius.
During this process, four protons condense together to form one nu-
clide of helium, a reaction that results in a small loss of mass. In
accordance with Einstein’s equation, E  mc 2, this mass is converted
into a large amount of energy, which is released as heat and radiation.
The formation of carbon occurs in the interiors of stars at 100 mil-
lion degrees Celsius. This reaction, producing one 12C nuclide from the
low-probability collision and condensation of three helium nuclides,
also known as alpha () particles, is called the triple- process (table
1.5). Once 12C is made by the triple- process, subsequent capture of
 particles produces oxygen and sulfur nuclides. Nitrogen nuclides are
generated catalytically in stars by a different process—the CNO cycle.
But formation of nuclides of one biogenic element, phosphorus, requires

TABLE 1.5 NUCLEOSYNTHESIS OF THE

BIOGENIC ELEMENTS

Cosmic
Abundance
Element Source(s) Production Processes (rank)
1
H Big Bang Primordial nucleosynthesis 1
2
He Big Bang and Primordial nucleosynthesis,
hydrogen-burning proton–proton chain, and
CNO cycle 2
6
C Helium-burning Triple-alpha process: 3 1 12C 4
7
N Hydrogen-burning CNO cycle 6
8
O Helium-burning Alpha capture: 12C   1 16O 3
10
Ne Carbon-burning Alpha capture: 16O   1 20Ne 5
16
S Oxygen-burning 16
O  16O 1 28Si   1 32S 10
15
P Carbon- and Many processes 17
neon-burning

Adapted from Macià et al. (1997).

Historical Understanding 29

many complex nuclear reactions (Macià et al. 1997). This more diffi-
cult synthesis explains why phosphorus is less abundant in the cosmos
than the other principal elements of life.

Circumstellar and Interstellar Molecules

Carbon stars are rich sources of carbon compounds and organic mole-
cules. Formed in the hot cores of these and other stars, the biogenic
elements migrate from the interiors to the cooler outer regions. There,
more ordinary chemical reactions give rise to diatomic and triatomic
elemental combinations, producing compounds that can be observed in
stellar atmospheres. Among the most common molecular species detected
are C2, CN, CO, CH, NH, OH, and H2O, all of which are present in
the atmospheres of ordinary main-sequence stars such as our Sun.
More than one hundred chemical species have been identified in the
interstellar medium by their distinctive gas-phase molecular spectra
(Oró and Cosmovici 1997; Oró 2000). All these molecules, ions, and
radicals are relatively simple, for the most part comprising just a few
(two to four) atoms; among the largest detected is the 13-atom com-
pound HC11N. About 75 percent of the various species now known
are organic, in that they contain atoms of carbon or carbon linked to
hydrogen. The biogenic elements are the most abundant reactive ele-
ments in the Universe (helium, although highly abundant, is chemically
inert); moreover, most known interstellar molecules contain carbon.
Thus, we can fairly say that the essence of the Universe is organic, fully
prepared for life to emerge wherever and whenever conditions permit.
Of the currently identified interstellar species, ten compounds are espe-
cially relevant to life: diatomic hydrogen (H2), ammonia (NH3), water
(H2O), carbon monoxide (CO), formaldehyde (CH2O), hydrogen sulfide
(H2S), hydrogen cyanide (HCN), cyanoacetylene (HC3N), phosphorus
nitrile (P[CN]5), and cyanamide (H2NCN). Using these compounds as
starting materials, one could synthesize in the laboratory, under plausi-
ble prebiological conditions, amino acids, nucleic acid bases, sugars,
lipids, and mononucleotides of the kinds present in all living systems
(table 1.3). But without such starting materials, there could be no life.

the earth -moon system

About 5,000 million years ago, the Solar System formed by the gravi-
tational collapse of a dusty gaseous nebula of interstellar matter. Pre-
sumably, this collapse was triggered by the shock wave of a nearby
30 John Oró

supernova explosion, as suggested by studies of Hoppe and colleagues

(1997), who have shown that grains of silicon carbide (SiC) in the
Murchison meteorite have isotopic compositions indicating supernova
origin. The first several million years of Solar System evolution involved
great upheaval, with the bodies of the system more or less continuously
colliding with planetesimals, comets, and other major objects as they
orbited the forming Sun. Thus, the early history of the Solar System
can be divided into two phases—first, the gravitational collapse of the
solar nebula to form the proto-Sun; second, the accretion of differen-
tiated nebular matter into planets, satellites, and other bodies. As
Delsemme (2000) has pointed out, the precursors of the innermost,
terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars) were rocky plan-
etesimals essentially devoid of low-mass molecules, owing to the rela-
tively high temperatures prevailing in the inner part of the asteroidal
belt (between Mars and Jupiter) whence they derived.
The record of impacts preserved on the surface of the Moon bears
witness to the turbulent state that prevailed during the early stages of
formation of the Solar System. Proto-Earth, too, must have undergone
many collisions with planetesimals, small and large. Cameron and his
colleagues have proposed a new (and, in some ways, revolutionary)
model for the formation of the Earth–Moon system that explains how
the system may have come into being (see, for example, Cameron and
Benz 1991). According to this theory, a celestial body having a mass
comparable to that of Mars collided with the proto-Earth, injecting
into the Earth much of the iron now present in its core. As a result of
this fusion, portions of Earth’s rocky mantle were ejected into orbit
and coalesced to form the Moon, the largest satellite encircling any of
the terrestrial planets. This theory explains most of the similarities
between the composition of Earth’s mantle and the Moon, as well as
the slight differences—for example, the Moon’s lower iron content. It
also explains various dynamic aspects of the system, such as the an-
gular momentum of the Earth–Moon pair.

Cometary Matter Captured by the Early Earth

During the catastrophic collision posited by Cameron’s theory, most of
the gaseous volatiles the colliding bodies originally harbored would
have been lost to space. If so, the inventory of such volatiles—water
and organic compounds on which the origin of life would ultimately
depend—must have been replenished, contributed by comets and other
Historical Understanding 31

small bodies of the evolving Solar System. These bodies would have
continued to bombard Earth during the late stages of planetary accre-
tion, the first 600 million years of the planet’s history (Cameron and
Benz 1991). Earth would have retained such volatiles gravitationally,
allowing its atmosphere and hydrosphere to form; but no such reten-
tion would have occurred on the Moon because of its much lower mass.
(Today the Moon’s total atmospheric pressure is 1010 torr, less than
a trillionth of that on Earth.) While some collisions would have con-
tributed water and volatile compounds to Earth, a process known as
impact capture, others would have removed such materials, sending
them into space (impact erosion). But by the end of this period of early
bombardment, as extrapolated from the cratering record on the Moon,
Earth’s mass would have significantly increased (table 1.6)—most
notably for the origin of life, in its content of water, as well as carbon
and the other biogenic elements. (Such a process may have occurred
repeatedly throughout the Solar System, not only on Earth, but also
on the other major terrestrial planets, Jupiter’s satellite Titan, and
elsewhere.)
Comets are very low-temperature aggregates of interstellar matter
that are gravitationally attracted by the Sun. Originating both in in-
terstellar space (in the Oort cloud) and in outer regions of the Solar
System (the Kuiper belt), they are regarded as huge “dirty snowballs”
(a model that derives from the pioneering studies of the astronomer
Fred Whipple). Delsemme has studied the composition of comets and

TABLE 1.6 COMETARY MATTER TRAPPED BY SOLAR

SYSTEM BODIES

Cometary
Body Matter (g) Time Span

Venus 4.0  1020 2.0  109 years

Moon 2.0  1020 During late accretion
Earth 2.0  1014 to 2.0  1018 2.0  109 years
1.0  1025 to 1.0  1026 During late accretion
3.5  1021 During late accretion
7.0  1023 4.5  109 years
2.0  1022 4.5  109 years
1.0  1023 2.0  109 years
1.0  1024 to 1.0  1025 1.0  109 years
6.0  1024 to 6.0  1025 1.0  109 years
1.0  1023 to 1.0  1026 4.5  109 years
Adapted from Oró et al. (1992).
32 John Oró

their relations to the terrestrial planets in detail (see Delsemme 1992),

while Greenberg and Hage have developed a model that explains their
origin from the condensation of interstellar grains to the formation of
ever-larger aggregates (Greenberg and Hage 1990).
In recent years, a number of comets have been studied in consider-
able detail—Halley’s (Kissel and Krueger 1987), Shoemaker-Levy 9 (by
N. Gautier at the Pic-du-Midi observatory), Hyakutake (Mumma
1997), and, of course, the spectacular Hale-Bopp of 1997. So far, more
than 33 chemical species have been identified in Hale-Bopp, most of
which are the same organic and inorganic molecules detected in the in-
terstellar medium. The organic composition of comets is probably best
reviewed by Mumma (1997), who was the first to use high-resolution
infrared spectroscopy to analyze the Hyakutake comet. He and his col-
leagues detected strong emissions from H2O, HDO, CO, CH4, C2H2,
C2H2, CH2OH, H2CO, OCS, HCN, OH, and other chemical species.
Of particular relevance to the origin of life are the large amounts of
methane (CH4) and ethane (C2H6) detected in the nucleus of Hyakutake.
The relation of comets to the emergence of life on Earth has been dis-
cussed recently by Oró and Lazcano (1997), Oró and Cosmovici (1997),
and Oró (2000).
Comets offer us a bridge that connects the chemistry of life on Earth
to that of the Universe at large. This bridging function may be one of
the most important consequences of cosmochemical evolution. I pro-
posed comets as a source of the organic molecules necessary for the
development of life on Earth many years ago in my paper “Comets and
the Formation of Biochemical Compounds on the Primitive Earth” (Oró
1961). A major study that confirms the relevance of this notion was
published by Armand Delsemme (2000): “The Cometary Origin of the
Biosphere.” (For additional discussion of the role of cometary organic
matter in the origin of life, see Oró 2000.)

Prebiotic Chemical Evolution

I have discussed a number of physical and chemical creative processes

in the history of the Universe that are relevant to the origin of life.
These creative processes have continued from the Big Bang through the
formation of stars and galaxies, the nuclear syntheses of biogenic ele-
ments in stars and supernova explosions, the formation of molecules
in circumstellar and interstellar clouds, and, eventually, the formation
of planetary systems like our own.
Historical Understanding 33

TABLE 1.7 PREBIOTIC SYNTHESIS OF BIOCHEMICAL

COMPOUNDS FROM COMETARY MOLECULES

Precursor Potential
Molecules Reactions Monomers Polymers Product

(1)
HCN S amino acids S peptides
(2)
HCN S purines
(3)
HC3N S pyrimidines S nucleotides S PROTOCELL
(4)
CH2O S ribose (5-p)
(5)
CO  H2 S fatty acids S phospholipids
(glycerolphosphate (liposomes)
 choline)

(1)  H2O  NH3

(2)  H2O  NH3
(3)  H2O  urea
(4)  P (phosphate)
(5) Fischer–Tropsch catalysis
Adapted from Oró (2000).

Once Earth acquired water and the cometary precursors needed for
nonbiological synthesis of biochemicals, life could not have emerged
without conditions that allowed synthesis of biochemical monomers and
polymers (polynucleotides, polypeptides, and lipids)—biochemicals
whose self-organization and natural selection could give rise to self-
reproducing living systems capable of Darwinian evolution. Such pro-
cesses of prebiological chemical evolution are addressed in the following
chapters, and have been described in a number of papers from differ-
ent laboratories, including our own. Recent reviews can be found in
Oró et al. (1990) and Oró (2000). An overall summary of the problem,
based largely on the importance of comets for the synthesis of the
essential biochemical molecules to life, is shown in table 1.7.

Biological Evolution and Mass Extinctions

Life has evolved on Earth over an unimaginably long time—4,000 mil-

lion years or more. The oldest fossils now known are those found in
rocks from Western Australia (the Apex chert), estimated to be nearly
3,500 million years old. Many of the microscopic fossils found, 11 dif-
ferent species, have morphologies similar to those of photosynthetic
34 John Oró

oxygen-producing cyanobacteria that live today (Schopf 1993). The

evolutionary process from these ancient microbes to present-day
species, studied so patiently by Darwin, is a near-miracle that is be-
yond the scope of this chapter. Suffice it to say, quoting Darwin’s On
the Origin of Species (1859): “From so simple a beginning, endless
forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being
evolved.” And I say that, among this endless series of “most beautiful
and most wonderful” forms, are microbes, flowering plants, dinosaurs,
and hominids, including ourselves, Homo sapiens sapiens. (Additional
discussion of life’s origin and earliest evolution can be found in two
excellent books: Miller and Orgel 1974; Schopf 1999.)
But, as Carl Sagan liked to remind us, “Comets giveth, and comets
taketh away.” One important inflection point in the Darwinian evolu-
tionary process took place about 65 million years ago with the impact
of a comet (or possibly an asteroid) in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula.
This comet, which left its mark as the Chicxulub crater, one of the
largest on the planet, was first suggested by discovery of abnormal
amounts of iridium, a cosmic marker in geologic units of this age. This
impact caused a catastrophic darkening of the Earth, presumably re-
sulting in the extinction of many kinds of life—including dinosaurs,
the dominant biologic group for nearly 200 million years. These
extinctions opened many new ecologic niches, some of which were ex-
ploited by warm-blooded animals like ourselves, mammals. The rise of
mammals eventually led to the appearance of primates—and, through
them, to the rise of humans—several million years ago.
A similar cosmic event, although without such Earth-shattering con-
sequences, happened not long ago—the collision of comet Shoemaker-
Levy 9 with Jupiter. Had any such collision occurred with the Earth,
it would almost certainly have wiped out much of the biosphere,
including humans (although various microorganisms might be expected
to survive, especially those living in the seas at abyssal depths). Indeed,
the “mother of all extinctions” (Luann Becker, quoted in Golden 2001),
which wiped out more than 90 percent of oceanic invertebrate species
and most genera of land plants and vertebrates about 250 million years
ago, is attributable to such a collision. This extinction was probably
triggered by the impact of an asteroid or comet some 6 to 12 km across
(Becker et al. 2001). That cosmic body would have slammed into Earth
with the force of a magnitude-12 earthquake (Golden 2001). According
to some investigators (Ward and Brownlee 2000), events such as these
may be of serious concern for the future of intelligent life on our planet.
Historical Understanding 35

EXPLORATION OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM

The Apollo Program

On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first human to set foot
on the Moon—the only heavenly body yet visited by humans. The lunar
samples he and Buzz Aldrin collected, the moon dust, were notably
blackish. At the time, the Houston newspapers reported that the ma-
terial brought back could be graphite, a coal-like crystalline carbon.
This preliminary impression kindled hopes that the Moon might have
harbored life in the distant past. These hopes died after analysis of the
lunar matter. Today, we know that life could never have existed on the
Moon, and that the dark color of the lunar dust was mainly due to
constant irradiation by the solar wind. In our laboratory, GC-MS (gas
chromatography–mass spectrometry) analyses confirmed that, with the
exception of a tiny amount (a few parts per million) of carbon monox-
ide, methane, and a few other simple compounds, the lunar samples
were devoid of organic matter. Others reported finding traces of amino
acids, but these were presumably products of reactions of hydrogen
cyanide brought to the Moon by comets, or of carbon, nitrogen, and
hydrogen atoms implanted on the Moon by the solar wind.

Life on Mars and Europa?

Even before the first Apollo flight, NASA had targeted Mars as the next
goal for space exploration. So, on July 20, 1976, exactly seven years
after the initial Apollo flight, the first of two NASA Viking spacecraft
landed on the surface of Mars. True to its sobriquet, the Red Planet
was soon seen to be covered by reddish-brown dust. As the first pic-
tures were received at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,
California, I was on hand as a member of the Viking molecular analy-
sis team. There, Dwayne Anderson, a colleague on the team, reminded
me of my own prediction—that the redness suggested a highly oxidized
soil, inhospitable to life.
Soon thereafter, our team began the hunt for volatizable organic and
inorganic compounds in the Martian dust. For molecular analysis, we
used Viking’s GC-MS instrument, which was similar, in principle, to
the one used earlier in our laboratory for studies of the lunar samples.
Viking’s new miniaturized apparatus was built according to suggestions
that Klaus Biemann and I had offered, together with other members of
our team. It differed from our laboratory instrument in one significant
36 John Oró

respect—its weight, just 20 kilograms instead of 2 tons. What were

our findings? We found that no organic matter was present, not even
at the level of parts per billion, at either of the landing sites, the plains
of Chryse and Utopia (Biemann et al. 1976). No evidence of life.
In contrast with these findings, one of the three sets of biological ex-
periments conducted by the Viking spacecraft showed that incubation
of the Martian dust in a nutrient solution containing 14C-tagged formic
acid (H14COOH) resulted in rapid generation of radioactive carbon
dioxide (14CO2). Levin and Straat (1976) interpreted this result as
evidence of active microbial metabolism. I countered that the carbon
dioxide did not come from microbes, but was the product of a chem-
ical reaction in which the mineralic iron oxides (the source of the dust’s
red color) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) present in the analyzed sam-
ples had oxidized H14COOH to 14CO2. This was 1976, but my as-
sessment was based on research I had done some 20 years earlier while
working on my doctoral thesis. I had studied the biological mechanism
of formic acid oxidation in living systems, and I knew, even at the time,
that in the presence of hydrogen peroxide, formic acid is rapidly oxi-
dized to carbon dioxide. This oxidation occurs biologically, catalyzed
by enzymes such as catalase (Oró and Rappoport 1959), which have
an iron atom at their reactive center; but it is also catalyzed by inor-
ganic iron (Fe2+, Fe3+), which is abundantly present in the iron oxide
minerals hematite (Fe2O3) and magnetite (Fe3O4) on the Martian sur-
face. Moreover, laboratory studies have since shown that the high flux
of ultraviolet light impinging on the surface of the Red Planet would
have rapidly oxidized, and thus destroyed, any organic matter that
might have been present initially. For example, the half-life of residence
of any meteoritic or cometary organic matter exposed on the surface
of Mars is a scant few months (Oró and Holzer 1979), a mere instant
in geologic time.
Although we found no evidence of life at the two Viking landing
sites, we cannot rule out the possibility that life might once have ex-
isted on Mars in the distant past. Thus, it remains worthwhile to re-
visit the planet to look for such life in the form of buried and preserved
fossils and their organic remnants. But what of Martian meteorite ALH
84001 and the possible presence of fossilized relics of microbial life
some 3,600 million years old (McKay et al. 1996)? I can add nothing
to what we have said before (Oró and Cosmovici 1997). Whether life
did or does exist on Mars, we will have to wait for certainty until sam-
ples are brought to Earth and studied in the laboratory.
Historical Understanding 37

In addition to Mars, other targets in the Solar System, notably Jupiter’s

satellite Europa, have raised interest, both in the scientific community and
within NASA, as possible abodes of present or past microbial life. NASA’s
Galileo spacecraft has obtained beautiful images of an array of linear
canyons that crisscross the surface of Europa. These images confirm the
frozen and cracked nature of Europa’s icy surface, which is thought to
overlie a global ocean—a prime site, as we suggested some years ago, for
the search for life (Oró et al. 1992b). But the surface itself is evidently in-
hospitable, as suggested by spectrophotometric findings of hydrogen per-
oxide and concentrations of sulfuric acid.

life beyond the solar system

Although it sounds like science fiction, it is perfectly reasonable to imag-
ine that life exists in other planetary systems. Particularly promising is
the orbital system that encircles the star Beta-Pictoris, some 54 light-
years distant from Earth. Beta-Pictoris is intriguing because it is sur-
rounded by a vast disk of comet-like matter—as we have seen, a rich
source of life-generating elements and organic compounds. Owing to
the intense infrared radiation it emits, this disk was first detected by
NASA’s infrared astronomical satellite (IRAS), then photographed by
American astronomers at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile.
Studies of Beta-Pictoris conducted by French astronomers suggest that
at least 100 comets fall onto the central star every year. But this esti-
mate is a minimum. Indeed, more recent work has shown that an infall
of about 1,000 comets per year, each about 1 km across, would be nec-
essary to explain the observed disappearance of cometary dust from
the central area of the star-encircling disk where planets may be pres-
ent (Lagage and Pantin 1994). If the orbital system around Beta-Pictoris
includes Earth-like planets, life may have already emerged, or be emerg-
ing now, on one or more of them. And Beta-Pictoris is not the only
promising site for the search for life: There is considerable indirect ev-
idence that other nearby stars are orbited by planetary companions, as
well as direct evidence of planet-forming, protoplanetary disks in the
Orion Nebula. Such protoplanetary disks have been detected around
approximately half of the stars studied in that nebula.

Discovery of Extrasolar Planets

Given the existence of other Earth-like planets, the emergence of life,

even of intelligent life, is possible. But it may or may not be common
38 John Oró

throughout the Universe (Drake 1963; Oró 1995; Ward and Brownlee
2000). Moreover, we do not know whether Earth-like planets are com-
mon, as some researchers assert, or vanishingly rare, as others have
claimed. The detection of small, Earth-like bodies is difficult, especially
if they are far distant from the Earth, but the search for extrasolar plan-
ets, actively encouraged by NASA, has already yielded promising results.
In one of the major scientific discoveries of the twentieth century, nu-
merous planets—all of them 50 or so light-years distant from our Solar
System—have been detected within the past decade. The first, discov-
ered by Michael Mayor and Didier Queloz of the Geneva Observatory
in Switzerland, was a huge planet orbiting star 51 Pegasi B (Mayor et al.
1997). Since this breakthrough, nearly 50 other planetary systems have
been detected (many reviewed by Marcy and Butler 1999). Among the
more interesting are a multiplanet system encircling the star Upsilon
Andromedae (Butler et al. 1999) and two somewhat smaller planets, a
bit less massive than Saturn, orbiting stars HD 46375 and 79 Ceti.
Because of the detection system used, only exceptionally massive plan-
ets, those about as large as or larger than Jupiter or Saturn, have been
discovered so far, but their very existence increases hopes that smaller,
Earth-like bodies will ultimately be found.
For the time being, however, discovery of extrasolar planets having
orbits and masses comparable to those of Earth will have to await the
deployment of the large infrared interferometry telescopic array cur-
rently under development by NASA. The first indicators of the existence
of life on such extrasolar planets may come from studies of atmospheric
chemistry, in particular by spectral detection of appreciable quantities
of diatomic, molecular oxygen (O2, not produced by volcanic or other
geologic processes), ozone (O3, a triatomic molecule produced photo-
chemically from O2), or perhaps water vapor (H2O, without which life
as we know it could not exist). If such data are forthcoming, they will
provide a much improved basis on which to calculate statistically the
possibility, or perhaps probability, of the existence of extraterrestrial in-
telligence. It is, of course, difficult to guess about such matters, but it
seems likely that we will have to wait several decades before more telling
information bearing on these questions becomes available.

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI)

At present, the existence of extraterrestrial life, not to mention extrater-

restrial intelligence, is an open question. It is even more difficult to say
Historical Understanding 39

whether technologically advanced civilizations, capable of transmitting

and receiving intelligible signals, exist in other planetary systems. Some
years ago, Frank Drake (1963) developed an equation composed of a
series of variables relevant to the problem. Using this equation, he cal-
culated that our own Milky Way Galaxy may boast one advanced plan-
etary civilization for every 10 million or so stars. However, the galaxy
contains, literally, an astronomical number of stars; thus, his calculation
means that civilizations may be rare and sporadically distributed but, at
the same time, numerous.
How can we resolve this enigma? Several researchers, Drake among
them, have suggested that we cannot use manned spaceships to explore
even our own galaxy. The voyage of a single spacecraft to a single
nearby star would consume an amount of energy equivalent to that
produced by all humans on Earth. But some years ago, an interested
group of American researchers—most prominently, Frank Drake, Don
Morrison, and Jill Tarter, as well as two who have since passed away,
Barney Oliver and Carl Sagan—suggested another way to attack the
problem. They proposed that instead of actively seeking such civiliza-
tions by journeying to distant stars, it would be wiser to tackle the
problem passively, by simply listening on appropriate channels for in-
telligent radio signals emitted by other civilizations.
Consequently, a radio signal–based search for extraterrestrial intelli-
gence (SETI) began in 1992; it was supported by NASA at a fraction of
the cost of any other space project. After just a few years, however, fed-
eral funding was withdrawn, largely owing to the objections of Senator
William Proxmire (who, it is said, claimed to be unsure that there were
intelligent beings in Washington, D.C., much less in outer space). In spite
of this setback, the search has continued as a venture playfully renamed
Project Phoenix, under the auspices of Frank Drake’s privately funded
SETI Institute in northern California. An active complement to this effort
has been launched by Guillermo Lemarchand (2000) and his research
team in Argentina. Although no extraterrestrial intelligent signals have
been identified, the search goes on. But astronomical distances are large,
and the number of technological civilizations in the Universe may be
small, so a long time may pass before any signals are received (Oró 1999).

epilogue
The Universe contains mostly hydrogen and helium, but it is also rich
in organic compounds that are precursors of key biochemical mole-
40 John Oró

cules conducive to the emergence of life. And, surprisingly, some simple

biochemicals involved in the transmission of nerve impulses (neuro-
transmitters)—the amino acids glycine, glutamic acid, and -aminobu-
tyric acid, for example—have been found in the Murchison meteorite,
thus demonstrating their extraterrestrial origin. One could therefore say
that the Universe is ready not only for the emergence of life but also for
the appearance of intelligence.
Conceivably, then, the Universe may harbor civilizations more in-
telligent than our own. Perhaps one day, through interstellar commu-
nication, some advanced civilization will help us resolve such age-old
problems as war, famine, disease, overpopulation, misuse of natural
resources, and human aging. But until utopia becomes reality, we would
do well to cherish our own small blue planet, with all its varied and
wonderful forms of life. We are all children of the Universe, but our
Solar System owns only one Earth.

Peace from Cosmic Evolution

The Apollo astronauts’ landing on the Moon allowed them to see the
Earth as a small distant body enveloped by the immensity of space.
They did not see the borders that separate people into different na-
tions, nor the other things that separate us, such as the color of peo-
ple’s skin. Far beyond the Earth, the astronauts could see the world as
one, an almost insignificant blue globe populated by brothers and sis-
ters of the human family, who, at their wisest and best, have the abil-
ity to share their planet’s limited resources and might yet learn to live
in peace. Indeed, the astronauts’ message, sent to us here on Earth, was
simply, “We came in peace representing all humankind.” This plain,
yet profound reflection can be extended to embrace a number of ethi-
cal principles derived from a better understanding of the cosmos and
the origin of life on Earth (Oró 1998):

1. Humility: The life of all cells descends from simple molecules.

2. Solidarity: Our genes have a common origin (Homo sapiens).
3. Cooperation: We live on a resource-limited planet.
4. Hope: Someday we may communicate with more advanced
civilizations.
5. Universality: We come from stardust and to stardust we shall
return.
Historical Understanding 41

6. Peace: We should change our culture of war into a culture of

peace.
7. Golden Rule: We should treat others as we would like them
to treat us.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am pleased to salute Meritxell Cos Badia, whose interest and hard

work were invaluable in the preparation of this article. Deepest grati-
tude also goes to the other participants in the UCLA Gold Medal
Symposium on the Origin of Life—particularly J. William (Bill) Schopf
and Jane Shen Schopf, who, with the help of Richard Mantonya, or-
ganized this memorable gathering. There is no question that the yearly
all-campus symposia convened by CSEOL (UCLA’s Center for the Study
of Evolution and the Origin of Life) render a great service not only to
UCLA, but to the larger community as well. Only a well-informed so-
ciety will be able to face and resolve the challenges the twenty-first
century will bring. Let us hope that, with humility, solidarity, and co-
operation, we will be able to manage and wisely distribute the limited
resources of planet Earth, protecting our terrestrial environment, so
that future generations may live harmoniously and peacefully.

REFERENCES

Bernal, J. D. 1939. The social function of science. London: Routledge and Sons.
——. 1949. The physical basis of life. Proceedings of the Royal Society of
London 357A:537–58.
——. 1951. The physical basis of life. London: Routledge and Paul.
——. 1958. World without war. New York: Monthly Review Press.
——. 1967. The origin of life. Cleveland, Ohio: World Publishing.
Biemann, K., J. Oró, P. Toulmin III, L. E. Orgel, A. O. Nier, D. M.
Anderson, P. G. Simmonds, D. Flory, A. V. Diaz, D. R. Rushneck, and J. A.
Biller. 1976. Search for organic and volatile inorganic compounds in two sur-
face samples from the Chryse Planitia region of Mars. Science 194:72–76.
Butler, R. P., G. W. Marcy, D. A. Fischer, T. W. Brown, A. R. Contos, S. G.
Korzennik, P. Nisenson, and R. W. Noyes. 1999. Evidence for multiple com-
panions to Upsilon Andromedae. Astronomical Journal 526:916–27.
Calvin, M. 1969. Chemical evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cameron, A. G. W., and W. Benz. 1991. The origin of the Moon and the sin-
gle impact hypothesis IV. Icarus 92:204–16.
Cronin, J. R., and S. Pizzarello. 1997. Enantiomeric excesses in meteoritic
amino acids. Science 275:951–55.
42 John Oró

Darwin, C. 1859. On the origin of species by means of natural selection.

London: John Murray.
Delsemme, A. 1992. Cometary origin of carbon, nitrogen and water on the
Earth. Origins of life 21:279–98.
Delsemme, A. 2000. The cometary origin of the biosphere. Icarus 146:313–25.
Drake, F. D. 1963. The radio search for intelligent extraterrestrial life. In Current
aspects of exobiology, ed. G. Mamikunian and M. H. Briggs, 323–45.
Pergamon: New York.
Eccles, J. C. 1991. Evolution of the brain: Creation of the self. London: Routledge.
Flammarion, C. 1917. La pluralité des mondes habités [The plurality of inhab-
ited worlds]. Paris: E. Flammarion.
Garrison, W. H., D. C. Morrison, J. G. Hamilton, A. A. Benson, and M.
Calvin. 1951. The reduction of carbon dioxide in aqueous solutions by ioniz-
ing radiation. Science 114:461.
Golden, R. 2001. Great balls of fire. Time, 5 March, 59.
Greenberg, J. M., and J. I. Hage. 1990. From interstellar dust to comets: A
unification of observational constraints. Applied Journal of Science 361:
260–74.
Grobstein, C. 1965. The strategy of life. San Francisco: Freeman.
Guth, A. H. 1994. The Big Bang and cosmic inflation. In The Oskar Klein
Memorial Lectures 2, ed. G. Ekspong, 27–70. Stockholm: World Scientific.
Guth, A. H. 1997. The Inflationary Universe. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley.
Hoppe, P. et al. 1997. Type II supernova matter in a silicon carbide grain from
the Murchison meteorite. Science 272:1314–17.
Kissel, J., and F. R. Krueger. 1987. The organic component in dust from comet
Halley as measured by the PUMA mass spectrometer on board Vega 1.
Nature 326:755–60.
Lagage, O. O., and E. Pantin. 1994. Dust depletion in the inner disk around
Beta-Pictoris as a possible indicator of planets. Nature 369:628–30.
Lazcano, A. 1992. The spark of life, Alexander I. Oparin. Mexico City:
Pangea Editores.
Lazcano, A. 1995. A. I. Oparin: The man and his theory. In Evolutionary bio-
chemistry and related areas of physicochemical biology, ed. B. F. Poglazov,
B. I. Kurganov, M. S. Kritsky, and K. L. Gladilin, 49–56. Moscow: A. N.
Bach Institute of Biochemistry and ANKO Press.
Leicester, H. M. 1974. Development of biochemical concepts from ancient to
modern times. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Lemarchand, G. 2000. A new era in the search for life in the Universe. In
Bioastronomy ’99: A new era in bioastronomy, ed. A. G. Lemarchand and
K. J. Meech, 7–18. San Francisco: Astronomical Society of the Pacific.
Levin, G. V., and P. A. Straat. 1976. Viking labeled release biology experiment:
Interim results. Science 194:1322–29.
Löb, W. 1911. Einführung in die biochimie [Introduction to biochemistry].
Leipzig: B. G. Teubner.
Macià, E., V. Hernandez, and J. Oró. 1997. Primary sources of phosphorus and
phosphates in chemical evolution. Origins of life and evolution of the bio-
sphere 27:459–80.
Historical Understanding 43

Marcy, G. W., and R. P. Butler. 1999. Extrasolar planets: Techniques, results,

and the future. In The origin of stars and planetary systems, ed. C. J. Lada
and N. D. Kylafis, 681–708. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer.
Margulis, L., and D. Sagan. 1997. What is life? Barcelona, Spain: Proa (in Spanish).
Mayor, M., D. Queloz, S. Udry, and J. L. Halbachs. 1997. From brown dwarfs
to planets. In Astronomical and biochemical origins and the search for life
in the Universe, ed. C. B. Cosmovici, S. Bowyer, and D. Werthimer, 313–30.
Bologna: Editrice Compositori.
McKay, D. S., E. K. Gibson Jr., K. L. Thomas-Keprta, H. Vali, C. S. Ramaneck, S.
J. Clemett, X. D. F. Chiller, C. R. Maechling, and R. N. Zare. 1996. Search for
past life on Mars: Possible relic biogenic activity in Martian meteorite
ALH84001. Science 273:924–30.
Miller, S. L. 1953. A production of amino acids under possible primitive Earth
conditions. Science 117:528.
Miller, S. L. 1957. The mechanism of synthesis of amino acids by electric dis-
charges. Biochimica et Biophysica Acta 23:480.
Miller, S. L., and L. E. Orgel. 1974. The origins of life on the Earth. Englewood
Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall.
Moreno, A. 1998. Definition of life. Questions and problems. In Life in the
Universe. Horizons and frontiers, Summer Studies Course G.3C, 92–106
(in Spanish). San Sebastian, Spain: Basque Country University Publications.
Mumma, M. J. 1997. Organics in comets. In Astronomical and biochemical ori-
gins and the search for life in the Universe, ed. C. B. Cosmovici, S. Bowyer, and
D. Werthimer, 121–42. Bologna: Editrice Compositori.
Oparin, A. I. 1924. Proiskhozhedenie Zhizni (Moskva: Moskovskii Rabochii).
[Reprinted and translated into English by J. D. Bernal, 1967. The origin of
life, 199–234. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.]
——. 1938. The origin of life. New York: Macmillan.
——. 1986. Life: One of the forms of movement of matter. In Origin of life and
evolution of cells. Tributes of the society of Catalonian biology, ed.
L. Margulis, R. Guerrero, and A. Lazcano, 39:15–36 (in Catalan).
Orgel, L. E. 1973. The origins of life. New York: Wiley.
Oró, J. 1960. Synthesis of adenine from ammonium cyanide. Biochemical and
Biophysical Research Communications 2:407–12.
——. 1961. Comets and the formation of biochemical compounds on the prim-
itive Earth. Nature 190:389–90.
——. 1963. Studies in experimental organic cosmos chemistry. Annals of the
New York Academy of Sciences 108:464–81.
——. 1965. Stages and mechanisms of prebiological synthesis. In The origin of
prebiological systems, ed. S. W. Fox, 137–71. New York: Academic Press.
——. 1995. The chemical and biological basis of intelligent terrestrial life from
an evolutionary perspective. In Progress in the search for extraterrestrial
life, ASP Conference Series 74, ed. G. Seth Shostak, 121–33.
——. 1998. Cosmochemical evolution. A unifying and creative process in the
Universe. In Exobiology: Matter, energy, and information in the origin
and evolution of life in the Universe, ed. J. Chela-Flores and F. Raulin,
11–32. Amsterdam: Kluwer.
44 John Oró

——. 1999. Evolutionary requirements for development of intelligent life. In

Origins of intelligent life in the Universe, ed. R. Colombo, G. Giorello,
G. Rigamonti, E. Sindoni, and C. Sinigaglia, 167–95. Como, Italy: Edicioni.
——. 2000. Organic matter and the origin of life in the Solar System. In
Bioastronomy ’99: A new era in bioastronomy, ed. A. G Lemarchand and
K. J. Meech, 285–302. San Francisco: Astronomical Society of the Pacific.
Oró, J., and C. B. Cosmovici. 1997. Comets and life on the primitive Earth. In
Astronomical and biochemical origins and the search for life in the Universe,
ed. C. B. Cosmovici, S. Bowyer, and D. Werthimer, 97–120. Bologna:
Editrice Compositori.
Oró, J., and G. Holzer. 1979. The photolytic degradation and oxidation of
organic compounds under simulated Martian conditions. Journal of
Molecular Evolution 14:153–60.
Oró, J., and A. P. Kimball. 1961. Synthesis of purines under possible primitive
Earth conditions. I. Adenine from hydrogen cyanide. Archives of
Biochemistry and Biophysics 94:217–27.
Oró, J., and A. P. Kimball. 1962. Synthesis of purines under possible primitive
Earth conditions. II. Purine intermediates from hydrogen cyanide. Archives
of Biochemistry and Biophysics 96:293–313.
Oró, J., and A. Lazcano. 1997. Comets and the origin and evolution of life. In
Comets and the origin and evolution of life, ed. P. J. Thomas, C. F. Chyba,
and C. P. Mckay, 3–27. New York: Springer.
Oró, J., and D. A. Rappoport. 1959. Formate metabolism by animal tissues II.
The mechanism of formate oxidation. Journal of Biological Chemistry
243:1661–65.
Oró, J., A. P. Kimball, R. Fritz, and F. Master. 1959. Amino acid synthesis
from formaldehyde and hydroxylamine. Archives of Biochemistry and
Biophysics 18:115–30.
Oró, J., S. L. Miller, and A. Lazcano.1990. The origin and early evolution of life
on Earth. Annual Reviews of Earth and Planetary Sciences 85:317–56.
Oró, J., T. Mills, and A. Lazcano. 1992a. Comets and the formation of bio-
chemical compounds on the primitive Earth—A review. Origins of Life 21:
267–77.
Oró, J., S. W. Squyres, R. T. Reynolds, and T. M. Mills. 1992b. Europa:
Prospects for an ocean and exobiological implications. In Exobiology in
Solar System exploration, NASA Special Publication 512, ed. G. C. Carle,
D. E. Schwartz, and J. L. Huntington, 103–25. Washington, D. C.: U. S.
Printing Office.
Pizzarello, S., and J. R. Cronin. 1998. Alanine enantiomers in the Murchison
meteorite. Nature 394:236.
Ponnamperuma, C. 1965. Abiological synthesis of some nucleic acid con-
stituents. In The origin of prebiological systems, ed. S. W. Fox, 221–42. New
York: Academic Press.
Ponnamperuma, C., ed. 1981. Comets and the origin of life. Dordrecht, The
Netherlands: Reidel.
Schopf, J. W., ed. 1983. Earth’s earliest biosphere: Its origin and evolution.
Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Historical Understanding 45

——. 1993. Microfossils of the Early Archean Apex chert: New evidence of the
antiquity of life. Science 260:640–46.
——. 1999. Cradle of life: The discovery of Earth’s earliest fossils. Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Schrödinger, E. 1956. What is life? and other scientific essays. Garden City,
N.J.: Doubleday.
Urey, H.C. 1952. The early chemical history of the Earth and the origin of life.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 38:351.
Ward, P., and D. Brownlee. 2000. Rare earth—Why complex life is uncommon
in the Universe. New York: Copernicus/Springer.
Wakamatsu, H., Y. Yamada, T. Saito, I. Kumasiro, and T. Takenishi. 1966.
Synthesis of adenine by oligomerization of hydrogen cyanide. Journal of
Organic Chemistry 31:2035–36.
chapter 2

From Big Bang to

Primordial Planet
Setting the Stage for the Origin of Life

ALAN W. SCHWARTZ AND SHERWOOD CHANG

introduction
According to modern theory, life arose on the primitive Earth by a
process of prebiotic chemical evolution. This process began with syn-
theses of organic chemical precursors of proteins, nucleic acids, and
membranes in the early atmosphere and ocean, and ended with the
emergence of life forms capable of self-replication—forms that could
undergo Darwinian evolution through mutation and natural selection.
Although most researchers accept this view of prebiotic evolution, opin-
ions diverge on the nature and sequence of chemical events between
the first and last stages. Many theoretical paths meander through this
murky middle ground, but the track culminating in biological evolu-
tion remains unclear. While other chapters illuminate current progress
in tracing this pathway, this chapter sets the stage, showing how life
on Earth is related to—and a product of—a long sequence of cosmic
events that preceded the formation of our planet.
Biochemistry must surely have grown out of geochemistry, that is,
out of chemical reactions occurring among inorganic components de-
rived from Earth’s atmosphere, ocean, or crust. Even if we were to
accept the tenets of panspermia—the idea that life was carried to Earth
in meteorites from other bodies or in dust particles from interstellar
space—we would still have to trace its beginnings to planetary processes
elsewhere. And the nature of such processes is critical. Chemical evolu-
tion and planetary evolution are inextricably intertwined, so progress

46
From Big Bang to Primordial Planet 47

toward the origin of life may end at any stage if a host planet’s phys-
ical or chemical development takes a wrong turn.
Since the early 1950s, when research into life’s beginnings began in
earnest, astronomers, astrophysicists, and cosmochemists have been
making discoveries relevant to a general theory for the origin of life.
Organic compounds in increasing numbers and complexity have been
detected in the interstellar medium and comets. Many organic com-
pounds of the sort that make up living systems—but unequivocally non-
biological and extraterrestrial in origin—have been identified in car-
bonaceous meteorites. Spectroscopic observations in the Solar System
have revealed organic compounds on asteroids as well as on the giant
planets and their satellites. Minute grains of organic matter similar to
those found in meteorites have also been detected throughout our galaxy
and beyond. Clearly, organic matter occurs throughout the Universe as
an integral component of cosmic evolution. And, with the detection of
increasing numbers of planets around other stars, the prospect of iden-
tifying other life-harboring solar systems seems inevitable.
Throughout history, cultural concepts have shaped human percep-
tions of the Universe and humanity’s place within it. Today, our very
perceptions have changed, expanding beyond the reaches of the Solar
System to the stars and interstellar clouds that populate limitless space.
And our concepts have changed as well. Just as biological evolution im-
plies that all organisms diverged from a common ancestor, cosmic evo-
lution implies that all matter in the Solar System had a common origin.
Life, we can now argue, is the product of countless changes in the form
of primordial stellar matter, and these changes were wrought by astro-
physical and cosmochemical, as well as geological and biological, evo-
lutionary processes. In the context of cosmic evolution, the chain of
events that led to life’s beginnings extends back through planetary his-
tory to the origin of the Solar System, to the star-spawning turmoil of
interstellar clouds, to the birth in stars of the biogenic elements that
make up living systems. Indeed, the links in this chain constitute a cos-
mic history full of promise that life is widespread in the Universe.*

*Throughout this chapter, the reader is directed to images of astrophysical phenomena

taken with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). These pictures are made available by the
Space Telescope Science Institute on the World Wide Web through links at http://
oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/SubjectT.html. To access a specific image, replace “SubjectT”
in this web address with the bracketed code listed adjacent to the name of the phe-
nomenon in the text. For example, the image referred to in the text as “Crab nebula
[PR/2000/15/index.html]” can be retrieved at http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/2000/
15/index.html.
48 Alan W. Schwartz and Sherwood Chang

origin of the biogenic elements

Soon after the Big Bang, the expanding universe contained only three
kinds of atoms—hydrogen (1H), deuterium (2H or D), and helium
(3He). As the swirling primordial cloud of atoms evolved, local con-
centrations of hydrogen and helium began to form. These denser cloud
fragments became the birthplaces of the first generation of stars. Under
the influence of gravitational forces, the cloud fragments contracted
and released their potential energy as heat, some of which radiated to
space while the rest raised the internal temperature of the forming stars.
When these temperatures approached 107 degrees kelvin, atomic colli-
sions became so energetic that nuclear fusion reactions occurred in the
interiors of the stars. And when the rates of nuclear heat generation
rose to balance the rates of heat loss, the stars stopped contracting and
entered a stable period of stellar evolution fueled by the chemical re-
actions of nuclear fusion. During this quiescent period, their endow-
ment of hydrogen was slowly “burned” and converted to helium. But
once their stores of hydrogen were depleted, the stars contracted even
more, and their temperatures rose again; at about 108 degrees kelvin, he-
lium burning turned on, initiating formation of heavier chemical elements,
particularly carbon (12C) and two isotopes of oxygen, 16O and 18O.
When a massive star uses up its nuclear fuel and its central core con-
tracts and collapses, gravity crushes the matter in its core to increas-
ingly higher densities and internal temperatures reach billions of de-
grees. At these extreme conditions, nuclear reactions occur violently
and the collapse is catastrophically reversed. A thermonuclear shock-
wave passes through the expanding stellar debris, fusing lighter ele-
ments into heavier ones and violently ejecting the material into the in-
terstellar medium in a supernova explosion. In this way, first-generation
supernovae released the initial inventory of 12C, 16O, and 18O into the
space between stars, the interstellar medium, leaving behind an exceed-
ingly dense neutron star.
Other sources of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen isotopes include the
less energetic but more common novae, the stellar winds of red giant
stars during their prime of life, and the planetary nebulae formed in
the final stage of the evolution of red giants, when the last layers of
the star blow away to reveal an underlying hot dwarf star. That mass
loss plays an important role during the late stages of stellar evolution
is revealed by the endpoints of this evolution—white dwarfs from plan-
etary nebulae and neutron stars from supernovae—objects that are
From Big Bang to Primordial Planet 49

Figure 2.1. Over astronomical time, the biogenic elements

formed by the processes in stars are cycled through the inter-
stellar medium in many cycles of star formation, maturation,
and death. (Cartoon by J. Wood, Smithsonian Astrophysical
Observatory, Cambridge, MA.)

small, 2 solar masses or less, whereas mature stars reach 30 to 50 solar

masses. The large difference in mass between main-sequence stars and
the objects that remain after their demise represents the stellar mate-
rial that is recycled into the interstellar medium.
The next generation of stars that formed incorporated the 12C, 16O,
and 18O their predecessors had ejected into the interstellar medium.
These nuclides then acted as catalysts for more complex nuclear pro-
cessing, during which hydrogen burning led to formation of 13C, 14N,
and 17O. Supernovae ejected the complete suite of C, N, and O iso-
topes into the interstellar medium accompanied by newly formed, even
50 Alan W. Schwartz and Sherwood Chang

more massive chemical nuclides to serve as feedstock for subsequent

generations of stars (see Crab nebula [PR/2000/15/index.html]). Through
successive cycles of star birth and death, stellar nucleosyntheses produced
all the other elements required for life (most notably, sulfur and phos-
phorus) and those needed for life’s planetary habitats, and the elemental
and isotopic composition of the interstellar medium continued to evolve
over time. Thus, the atoms inherited by the Solar System have a com-
plex genealogy traceable to innumerable stars in the past—stars in which
these same atoms held temporary residence or in which they were formed
from previously existing nuclides (figure 2.1).
Solar systems with rocky planets probably did not form until the
heavy elements in their natal interstellar clouds exceeded some (as yet
unknown) critical abundance levels. Just as the rates of star formation
and death vary from region to region in the galaxy, so do the rates of
growth of heavy nuclide abundances. These variations suggest that the
timing and frequency of formation of solar systems that are like our
own differed throughout the galaxy.

ORIGIN OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM

Interstellar Clouds

Today, the stars that make up most of the visible galaxy are embedded
within a highly tenuous medium of gas and very fine dust. In regions
where dust is thick enough to prevent the penetration of light, the in-
terstellar medium appears as dark clouds against the stellar background.
These clouds occupy about 5% of our galaxy’s volume and are of var-
ious shapes and sizes. They can be as large as a light-year (9.5  1012
km) across, and they can contain as little as a few tens of solar masses
or as much as millions of Suns. Their contents are mostly gas, pre-
dominantly hydrogen, but 1% of their mass is present in the form of
tiny dust grains approximately 0.1 micrometer (m) across. The clouds
are cold, having temperatures of the order 10 to 100 degrees kelvin,
and are generally thin (104 molecules of hydrogen per cubic centime-
ter). Some have regions of higher gas and dust concentrations (of the
order 105 to 106 molecules per cubic centimeter), called cloud cores,
which serve as spawning grounds for stars (a good example is shown
in Eagle nebula [PR/1995/44.html]).
The earliest intimate associations between minerals, organic com-
pounds, and water occurred in interstellar clouds. Spectroscopic ob-
servations of such clouds in the vicinity of young stellar objects made
From Big Bang to Primordial Planet 51

TABLE 2.1 COMPOSITION AND RELATIVE

ABUNDANCES OF INTERSTELLAR ICES AND
COMET ICES ( H 2O  100)

Species Interstellar Comets

H2O 100 100

CO 2–25 5–30
CO2 14–22 3–20
CH4 0.5–4 1
CH3OH 3–18 0.3–5
H2CO 3–6 0.2–1
HCOOH 3–7 0.5
OCS 0.2 0.5
NH3 9–30 0.1–1.8
XCNa 0.3–3.5 0.01–0.4
a
CH-containing molecule in which X is unidentified.
Adapted from Gibb et al. (2000).

by the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO), launched in 1995, show the

presence of ices of water and organic compounds mantling dust parti-
cles (table 2.1). Together with icy grains, silicates and carbonaceous
particles make up the interstellar dust population, the last two repre-
senting condensates from the outflows of previous generations of stars.
Accompanying the dust in the gas phase of such clouds we find a
striking variety of molecules, some of which are quite complex in
structure whereas others, such as ethanol (C2H5OH), acetic acid
(CH3COOH), and formaldehyde (CH2O), are fairly simple (table 2.2).
Low temperatures permit the formation of unusual species (such as the
cyanopolyyne, HC11N) which are unstable under ordinary conditions.
Irradiation by starlight and cosmic rays initiate ion–molecule reactions
in the gas phase. Adsorption and recombination of atoms and free rad-
icals occur on grain surfaces. These low-temperature processes account
for the bulk of the organic chemical reactions that occur in quiescent
interstellar clouds (figure 2.2). In regions of star formation and in the
vicinity of energetic stellar phenomena such as supernovae, energy
fluxes are more intense, temperatures are higher, and the relatively more
complex molecules are present.

Solar Nebula

Observations of regions of star formation by use of modern telescopes

(particularly the Hubble Space Telescope and ISO), combined with devel-
opments in astrophysical theory, form the basis for an emerging picture
52 Alan W. Schwartz and Sherwood Chang

TABLE 2.2 ELEMENTAL COMPOSITIONS OF

INTERSTELLAR MOLECULES IN THE GAS PHASE

C, H, O, N C, H, N C, H, O C, H C, N C, O

HNCO HCN HCO CH CN CO

H2NCHO HNC HCO CH C3N CO2
HCNH HOCO CH2 C3O
H2CN H2CO CH4
H2CNH2 H2COH C2H
H3CNH2 H2COH C2H2
HCCN HCOOH C2H4
H2CCN H2CCO C3H
H3CCN H3CCHO C3H2
H2NCN H3CCH2OH CH3C2H
HC3N H3COCH3 C4H
HCCNC HC3HO C4H2
HNCCC H3CCOCH3 C5H
HC3NH+ HCOOCH3 CH3C4H
H2CCHCN H3CCOOH C6H
H3CCH2CN C7H
HC5N C8H
H3CC3N PAH
HC7N
H3CC4CN
HC9N
HC11N

PAH denotes polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons; chemical species detected but not listed here include
CS, CP, NP, NH, NH2, NH3, H2O, H2S, HCS, OCS, SO2, C2S, C3S, HNCS, and CH3SH.

of Solar System formation. Although much about the process is incom-

pletely understood, the main stages have been postulated, quantitative
theoretical models are being developed for the major steps involved, and
observations are being used to test the models.
The relatively high density in the cores of interstellar clouds is thought
to have arisen either from a diffusive separation of charged and neutral
species in the cloud’s magnetic field or from a violent disturbance nearby,
such as a supernova shock wave (which may have triggered the forma-
tion of the Solar System). Regardless of cause, the elevated cloud density
led to a state of gravitational instability in which the forces (turbulent
motions, thermal pressure, and the magnetic field) that normally pre-
vent core contraction failed to withstand the force of gravitation, so that
the core dynamically collapsed. During this process, gravitational en-
ergy was released and radiated away, efficiently at first, and the cloud
fragment’s angular momentum was translated into rotational motion.
Since centrifugal forces do not affect gravity in directions parallel to the
From Big Bang to Primordial Planet 53

Figure 2.2. Gases and grains are subjected to a variety of physical

and chemical processes during their residence in interstellar clouds.
(Cartoon by J. Wood, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory,
Cambridge, MA.)

rotational axis, the cloud core collapsed to a disk rather than to a sphere.
Its density increased first to 1010 and then to 1020 molecules per cubic
centimeter as the cloud diameter decreased to less than 1,000 astro-
nomical units (AU; the mean distance from the Earth to the Sun) and
flattened into a rotating disk. The magnetic field inherited from the cloud
fragment grew as the disk spun down, and an initially rapid influx of
gas to the center of the disk produced a proto-Sun, which continued to
Figure 2.3. After an interstellar cloud fragments, it goes through several
phases of prestellar collapse and evolution. (Cartoon by J. Wood,
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, MA.)
From Big Bang to Primordial Planet 55

grow by inward migration of matter within the disk in response to the

outward transport of angular momentum. We call this rotating cir-
cumstellar disk, with its embedded protostar, the solar nebula (figure
2.2). Recently, such disks have been observed directly in star-forming
regions (see, for example, Orion nebula [PR/1995/45.html] and Proplyds
[PR/1994/24.html]).
During the formation of the Solar System, the thermal state of the
nebula was determined by a balance between the gravitational energy
released by material accreting onto the proto-Sun and the energy de-
livered to the solar nebula and radiated away from its outer surfaces.
Initially, the collapsing cloud fragment remained cold (figure 2.3); but
as material rapidly accreted onto the embryonic Sun, the density of the
solar nebula increased until it became opaque to the thermal radiation
of the proto-Sun, trapping heat energy and causing the temperature at
the center of the disk to increase rapidly. Close to the proto-Sun, tem-
peratures became high enough to melt silicate minerals, while at the
outer reaches of the nebula they remained low enough to allow even
such volatile gases as carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen (N2), and
methane (CH4) to condense into ices. Energetic processes operating near
the accreting proto-Sun combined to drive a flow of gas, a solar wind,
that accelerated outward along the rotational axis.
As the rate of accretion onto the proto-Sun dwindled, the nebula
slowly cooled while preserving a thermal gradient in which tempera-
tures decreased with increasing distance from the forming star. On the
basis of the range of ages inferred for astronomically observed young
stars having circumstellar disks, the period from the collapse of the in-
terstellar cloud to the development of a cool solar nebula is estimated
to have spanned several to perhaps ten million years. (Interestingly, this
model of the origin and development of the solar nebula, though con-
tinuously upgraded and refined on the basis of new observations, is
rooted firmly in theories first articulated by Immanuel Kant in 1755
and Pierre-Simon Laplace in 1796.)
Throughout these stages of solar nebula evolution, the fate of
in-falling interstellar matter—its transformation and ultimate redistri-
bution among bodies of the Solar System—was governed by complex in-
teractions among physical, chemical, and dynamic processes (figure 2.4).
These included thermochemical and photochemical reactions, irradia-
tion by high-energy ions and electrons, vaporization, condensation, fluid
transport, dispersion by collisions, and ejection back into the interstellar
medium. Because many of these processes were driven by the proto-Sun,
56 Alan W. Schwartz and Sherwood Chang

Figure 2.4. Gases and solids in the solar nebula undergo a wide variety
of transformations as the result of physical, chemical, and dynamical
processes operating in the solar nebula as it evolves. (Cartoon by
J. Wood, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, MA.)

their effect was to create a highly energetic environment whose inten-

sity diminished with increasing distance from the forming Sun.

Planets

As the solar nebula evolved, clumps of gas and dust coagulated to form
the seeds from which planets formed (see AB aurigae [PR/1999/21]). Ice
From Big Bang to Primordial Planet 57

and mineral grains that flowed into the hot region near the proto-Sun
were vaporized, and some of the vapor was transported outward to cooler
regions where it recondensed into new grains. These submicron-sized so-
lar nebula condensates, together with grains inherited intact from the
cloud core, coalesced over time to form objects centimeters broad.
Because of the thermal gradient across the nebula, the objects in the in-
ner region were composed primarily of refractory inorganic minerals,
whereas those in the outer region were predominantly made up of water
and other ices mixed with organic compounds. Between these regions,
objects that contained large proportions of both ices and minerals occu-
pied a transition zone. All of these particles eventually settled to the mid-
plane of the nebula, forming a thin disk densely populated by solid
objects; there, because of their crossing orbits and low collisional veloc-
ities (10 m/sec), they grew in size as they collided with one another and
stuck together. According to computational simulations, the aggregation
of solid grains into meter-sized boulders would have taken less than a
million years, and the accretion of planetesimals—bodies meters to tens
of kilometers across—from 100,000 to 10 million years.
When kilometer-size planetesimals pass close to each other, their or-
bits can be perturbed by mutual gravitational attraction; collisions can
produce either fragmentation or further growth. Simulations show that
the maximum mass in populations of such objects increases steeply as
the smaller planetesimals are fragmented and aggregated onto the larger
ones, forming a sort of “feeding zone” where runaway accretion can
occur. During this stage, a few bodies—the protoplanets—grow much
more rapidly than the others. When this happens, most of the mass of
the population is concentrated in a few large objects, so collisions be-
tween them can be cataclysmic. As the feeding zones of the protoplanets
are swept clear of debris, gaps form in the circumstellar disk and run-
away accretion stops (see Disk Gap [PR/1999/03]). Simulations of these
processes designed to mimic settings like those of our own proto-Solar
System all seem to result in formation of two to five terrestrial planets
in the inner reaches of the system (where Mercury, Venus, Earth, and
Mars now reside) over an accretion time of about 100 million years.
While runaway accretion was forming the inner planets of the Solar
System, the same process in the outer parts of the solar nebula led to
aggregation of the huge rock–ice core of Jupiter, some 15 to 20 times
larger than the mass of the Earth. Ever increasing amounts of hydrogen
and helium were held by gravitation in Jupiter’s atmosphere as the
planet’s massive core grew larger. Studies show that accretion of gas
58 Alan W. Schwartz and Sherwood Chang

from the nebula was initially negligible; but once the core attained a
critical mass, gas accreted at an increasingly rapid rate, eventually greatly
exceeding the rate of mass increase from planetesimal in-fall. Similar
processes are likely to have formed Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune; but
for these planets, the sizes of the cores formed and the amounts of gas
accreted were smaller than those of Jupiter.
Exactly what terminated the accretion of gases on the giant planets
is uncertain. By comparison with the elemental abundances in the Sun,
none of these planets, including Jupiter, seems to have acquired as large
a complement of solar nebular gas as would be expected. Possibly, the
gaseous nebula was already beginning to dissipate by the time the plan-
ets’ cores attained critical mass. But the mechanisms of such dissipa-
tion are not fully understood, so other explanatory processes, such as
photo-evaporation by intense radiation from nearby young stars or the
onset of an extremely intense solar wind, have also been suggested (see
Evaporating Globules [PR/95/1995/44.html]). Astronomical observations
of young stars show that the initial circumstellar dust cloud has already
been cleared from around those older than about 10 million years. This
means that for these stellar nebulae, and perhaps for our own solar
nebula, planetary growth primarily occurred after the unconsolidated
gas and dust of a circumstellar disk had been dissipated.

Comets, Asteroids, and Meteorites

The growth of the giant protoplanets had consequences elsewhere,

beyond the regions of the Solar System relatively nearby. Many of the
ice-rich planetesimals that accreted in the outer solar nebula were grav-
itationally scattered into eccentric orbits. Some were ejected from the
Solar System; others were injected into the inner Solar System, where
they were destined to collide with the terrestrial planets or the Sun;
still others were bound into orbits that extended beyond 10,000 AU
to make up the Oort cloud, the spheroidal shell of bodies that encir-
cles the Solar System. Over time, gravitational influences from outside
of the Solar System—a result, for example, of passing stars or inter-
stellar clouds—perturbed the orbits of the Oort cloud objects, send-
ing some back into the Solar System as long-period comets. As these
bodies approach the Sun, they are gradually heated, and their ices sub-
lime to release dust and gas into their tail-like comas, a phenomenon
that makes them visible from Earth (see, for example, comet Hale-
Bopp [PR /1995/41.html]).
From Big Bang to Primordial Planet 59

In the last few years, another reservoir of icy bodies has been dis-
covered. These objects, whose orbits lie beyond that of Neptune and
mostly beyond that of Pluto, are members of the Kuiper belt group,
which is thought to be the source of short-period comets. The ISO has
been used to identify the ices that coat the surfaces of several of these
distant objects. These small icy bodies, formed and preserved at and
beyond the outer edges of the Solar System, are prime candidates as
storehouses of intact interstellar matter.
Recent astronomical observations of comets approaching the Sun,
including Hyakutake and Hale-Bopp, have revealed the presence of a rich
variety of simple organic compounds (table 2.3) chemically related to those
observed in dense interstellar clouds. Analysis of carbonaceous dust in
comet Halley’s coma revealed elemental compositions compatible with
mixtures of small interstellar molecules or their polymers (table 2.2). The

TABLE 2.3 COMPOUNDS OBSERVED IN

THE COMAS IN COMETS ( H 2 O  100)

Compound In Hale-Bopp In other comets

H2O 100 100

CO 20 20–1
CO2 20 20–3
H2CO 0.1 1–0.1
CH3OH 2 7–1
HCOOH 0.05
HNCO 0.1
NH2CHO 0.01
HCOOCH3 0.05
CH4 0.6
C2H2 0.1
C2H6* 0.3
NH3 0.6
HCN 0.2 0.2–0.05
HNC 0.04
CH3CN 0.02
HC3N 0.03
H2S 1.5 1.5–0.2
H2CS 0.02
CS 0.2 0.2
OCS 0.5
SO 0.5
SO2 0.1
S2* 0.005
*C2H6 and S2 have not yet been seen in interstellar clouds.
Adapted from Irvine et al. (2000).
60 Alan W. Schwartz and Sherwood Chang

compositions and relative abundances of the ices thought to comprise the

greater part of the nuclei of comets can be inferred from measurements
of the gases in their comas. These reconstructions show a remarkable
resemblance to the composition and relative abundances of ices recently
measured in interstellar clouds (table 2.1). The ices present both in long-
period (Oort cloud) and short-period (Kuiper belt) comets appear to be
quite similar. These and other findings support the notion that, in large
measure, the icy interstellar grains and associated organic matter survived
the transition from interstellar cloud to solar nebula, preserved in icy plan-
etesimals that became the building blocks of comets.
As the Solar System formed, gravitational scattering by Jupiter not
only influenced the orbits of comets but also disrupted the formation
of a planet in the asteroidal belt, the zone of space between the orbits
of Jupiter and Mars. Asteroidal bodies were scattered by gravitational
perturbations, depleting the zone of its population of planetesimals as
many were propelled into the inner reaches of the Solar System.
Although planet formation in the asteroidal belt was thus frustrated,
we can study the objects preserved there; eventually, such studies should
provide a sound basis for confirming or rejecting current models of the
earliest stages of planet building.
Although subject to a logarithmic decline after an early period of es-
pecially intense collisional interactions, impacts in the asteroidal belt
have sent large and small fragments of their parent bodies into Earth-
crossing orbits throughout Solar System history. Similarly, the passage
of comets has deposited trails of cometary dust through the inner Solar
System. Today, some of this dust enters Earth’s atmosphere, where it
decelerates gently and is captured in collectors deployed by high-flying
aircraft. These small comet grains (50 m), together with asteroidal
fragments of similar size, comprise the interplanetary dust particles
(IDPs). Laboratory studies of these objects afford a tantalizing glimpse
of the composition and history of objects formed elsewhere in the Solar
System. However interesting to researchers, IDPs are too small to per-
mit the comprehensive organic analyses that can be carried out on larger
impacting bodies—meteorites.
Meteors are chunks of debris left over from the formation of the
Solar System. When we see them coursing through the sky, we call them
“shooting stars”; but once they hit the planet’s surface, we call them
meteorites. Many meteorites are metallic, containing shiny grains of an
iron–nickel alloy like that in the interior of Earth. But others are min-
eralic masses, evidently dislodged by violent collisions from the surfaces
From Big Bang to Primordial Planet 61

of rocky asteroids, and even the Moon and Mars. Among these stony ob-
jects are the carbonaceous chondrites, so named because they contain a
speckling of tiny glassy balls (chondrules) and up to 5% of the element
carbon, largely in the form of dark “coaly” carbonaceous organic mat-
ter. This group of meteorites is of special interest because their organic
chemical contents include many compounds found in biochemistry even
though they originated by purely nonbiological processes.
The most famous carbonaceous chondrite studied to date fell on
September 28, 1969 near Murchison, Australia. Known as the Murchison
meteorite (or, simply, “Murchison”), this meteorite is an organic-rich ob-
ject. During the past two decades, Murchison’s organic constituents have
been studied in detail, as have been those in carbonaceous meteorites re-
trieved from the Antarctic ice sheet. Prior to 1969, studies of the organic
chemistry of such meteorites had been confounded by the presence of
ubiquitous and all too often obscuring terrestrial contamination. But re-
search techniques have improved since then. Recent analyses, particu-
larly of Murchison, show that the organic compounds detected are un-
questionably extraterrestrial, and that they comprise a remarkable
concentration and diversity of organic compounds embedded within a
clay and carbonate mineral matrix.
Life requires both water and a diversity of organic chemical building
blocks. Hence it is noteworthy that the presence of liquid water was a
prerequisite for the formation of the mineral assemblage found in such
meteorites. Moreover, among the many classes of organic compounds
detected, these meteorites contain amino acids, fatty acids, and both
purines and pyrimidines—all building blocks of life (table 2.4). In all
classes of compounds studied, homologous series occur, in which the
molecular abundances decrease logarithmically with increasing carbon
number. Carboxylic acids up to 12 carbons in length have been detected,
and nearly all possible structural isomers of compounds having low car-
bon numbers have been found. But among those classes of compounds
relevant to biology, only a very small fraction of the meteoritic isomers
are capable of playing a biochemical role. However, amino acids in the
Murchison have recently been shown to contain a slight excess of the
levorotatory L-enantiomer. (Some astrophysicists argue that this enan-
tiomeric excess was induced in the interstellar medium by circularly po-
larized light arising from dust-scattering in regions of high-mass star
formation. But regardless of how it was produced, this nonracemic
amino acid mix appears to provide the first evidence of a naturally oc-
curring chiral process unrelated to biology.)
62 Alan W. Schwartz and Sherwood Chang

TABLE 2.4 ORGANIC COMPOUNDS

IDENTIFIED IN METEORITES

Compound In meteorites In biology

Biochemical building blocks

Amino acids a,b Proteins

Fatty acids c Membranes
Glycerol  Membranes
Inorganic phosphate  Membranes and
nucleic acids
Purines  Nucleic acids
Pyrimidines  Nucleic acids
Ribose and deoxyribose — Nucleic acids

Other biochemical components

Alcohols  
Aldehydes  
Amides  
Amines  
Mono- and dicarboxylic acids  
Hydroxy carboxylic acids  
Aliphatic hydrocarbons  —
Aromatic hydrocarbons  —
Ketones  —
Phosphonic acids  —
Sulfonic acids  —
Sulfides  —
a
At least one of the isomers identified in meteorites occurs in living systems;—, not detected.
b
Most meteoritic amino acids are not found in living systems.
c
None of the short-chain meteoritic acids occurs in biological membranes.

The critical connection on Earth between liquid water and life, with
its organic composition, lends special significance to the evidence for
liquid water and organic compounds in carbonaceous meteorites.
Apparently, prebiotic evolution of some kind occurred early on parent
bodies in the asteroidal belt, but fell short of the origin of life itself.
Nitrogen, hydrogen, and sulfur measured in meteoritic organic matter
are anomalously enriched in their heavier isotopes (figure 2.5), a find-
ing that suggests an interstellar origin for most, if not all, of the or-
ganic matter detected. Only in interstellar molecules are more extreme
ratios of deuterium to hydrogen (D/H) known to occur, in some cases
approaching values of 0.3 (the D/H ratio in galactic hydrogen is 2 
105 and that for ocean water is 104). Tiny grains of graphite and
From Big Bang to Primordial Planet 63

Figure 2.5. The organic components of the Murchison meteorite are

composed of isotopes of carbon (12C and 13C) and hydrogen (1H and
D, deuterium) that vary widely and lie well outside the ranges of values
found in organic matter on Earth.

diamond in Murchison also exhibit isotopic properties that signify ori-

gins as stardust ejected from earlier generations of carbon stars. And
the spectral properties of carbonaceous meteorites resemble those of
the abundant C-type main-belt asteroids that occur predominantly near
the center and outward to the distant edge of the asteroidal belt.
All these considerations lead to the conclusion that parent bodies of
at least some carbonaceous meteorites formed by co-accretion of ice-
rich and rock-rich planetesimals in the transition zone between the in-
terstellar cloud and the solar nebula. During subsequent internal heat-
ing, ices melted, and the resulting liquid water transformed anhydrous
minerals to phases such as clays and carbonates. Hydrolysis and other
aqueous reactions altered interstellar precursors (table 2.2) to yield
some of the organic compounds listed in table 2.4. Conversion of ni-
triles to organic acids is an example.
Small bodies continued to fall onto proto-planets throughout the ac-
cretionary process. Indeed, such impacts evidently occurred, though
with exponentially decreasing frequency, over the first 700 million years
64 Alan W. Schwartz and Sherwood Chang

of Solar System history, after which a low, more or less steady state of
in-fall became the norm, a situation that has maintained up to the pres-
ent. The record of early impacts is preserved in the cratered surfaces
of the Moon, Mercury, and Mars, and the ages of cratering events on
the Moon have been established from rock samples brought to Earth
by NASA’s Apollo Project. As discussed in chapter 6, age measurements
on such samples show that large impactors struck the Moon as late as
3,800 million years ago. The prediction that the final stages of plan-
etary formation involve collisions between large bodies of similar size
is consistent with the idea that the Moon was formed by material ejected
into orbit by a Mars-sized object (6,700 km in diameter) that struck
the Earth. The occurrence of such giant collisions also explains varia-
tions in orbital inclinations, rotational periods, and tilted rotational
axes among the various inner planets.

earth
Early Geophysical Evolution

According to the current scenario of planetary origin, Earth formed in

a violent process over a period of about 100 million years. Impacting
bodies deposited their kinetic energy at depth as well as at the surface;
and as the hot planetary embryo grew, iron separated from silicate to
form a metallic core. Collision with another large embryonic planet
tilted Earth’s rotational axis and ejected a portion of its mantle into
orbit where it cooled and coalesced to form the Moon. Collisions con-
tinued at a declining rate as Earth captured the remaining bodies in its
feeding zone. The newborn planet developed a magnetic field, a highly
convective mantle, and a molten surface. As the input of energy from
accretion diminished over time, surface temperature dropped, a surface
scum of rock solidified, and water rained out to form an ocean.
Magnetic field and atmosphere provided shielding against highly ener-
getic and intense radiation from the young Sun. Surface temperatures
at or below 100 C prevailed as early as 4,400 million years ago.
Collisions continued over the first many hundred million years of
Earth’s history, perhaps occasionally with huge impactors, but increas-
ingly with ever smaller bolides that yielded correspondingly weaker ef-
fects and faster recovery times. In impacts of Earth with bodies 450 km
in diameter, ejected hot rock vapor encircled the globe and its heat ra-
diated downward, evaporating the early ocean to produce a dense steam
From Big Bang to Primordial Planet 65

atmosphere having a pressure of perhaps several hundred bars. With con-

tinued radiative heating, the exposed surface melted to considerable
depth. Eventually, radiation of the heat to space cooled the atmosphere
and surface. Once the environment had cooled to the critical point of
water, precipitation began and a new ocean rained out, a return to the
pre-giant impact environment that appears to have been remarkably
rapid, calculated to have taken only a few thousand years.
Devastating, ocean-evaporating impacts precluded the survival of
emergent ecosystems. But the short duration of their effects and their
strongly diminishing frequency over time assured the eventual sustain-
ability of life on the surface. Various workers theorize that the last truly
major impact occurred either as early as 4,400 million years ago or as
late as 3,800 million years ago. Undoubtedly, impacts constrained the
timing of the origin of life, but such large uncertainties in the calcula-
tions leave open the earliest time at which life could have gained a per-
manent foothold on the planet. Little is known about how long it takes
for the origin of living systems. If the required time scale is short, life
may have arisen more than once between major impacts (and, of course,
the hazards to life posed by such impacts decrease with depth from
surface environments to the ocean deeps where living systems might
have found a safe haven from the devastation at the surface).
Although the Earth is 4,550 million years old, a substantial read-
able rock record, direct evidence of Earth’s early history, dates from
3,900 million years ago. Nonetheless, the earliest 650 million years
must have been a time of extensive geophysical change. The dwindling
size and frequency of impacts lengthened the time between major en-
vironmental perturbations. Heat flow from Earth’s interior was ini-
tially very high, permitting dissipation of thermal energy left over from
accretion. But by about 3,800 million years ago, heat flow had evi-
dently diminished to a level only about four times greater than that
at present, and both volcanism and hydrothermal activity had simi-
larly lessened. As the new-formed Moon gradually receded from the
Earth, day length increased, and the amplitude of ocean tides de-
creased. The total luminosity of the young Sun brightened to about
70% of its current level, while its high early ultraviolet output de-
creased substantially from levels that were initially more than 30 times
as intense as now. The crust began to sort itself into continental and
oceanic realms, the atmosphere and oceans formed, and land surface
grew in areal extent.
66 Alan W. Schwartz and Sherwood Chang

Atmosphere–Ocean System

Studies of the elemental and isotopic compositions of noble gases in sam-

ples derived from Earth’s mantle indicate that these gases were being re-
leased into the atmosphere as early as 4,400 million years ago. Since
nitrogen is relatively unreactive and behaves like a noble gas, it, too, out-
gassed early on. Dissolved in hot surface rocks or trapped in sediments
and then cycled between the surface and the interior, water and such
carbon-containing gases as carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and
methane came to be partitioned between the mantle and the ocean–
atmosphere system. The presence of a primordial isotope of helium (3He)
in mantle rocks suggests, however, that Earth may have gravitationally
captured gases from the solar nebula before the nebular cloud completely
dissipated. If so, most primordial gases appear to have been lost since
then, and if Earth’s Moon was actually formed by a giant impact, this
devastating event could have provided the mechanism to blow away
Earth’s initial hydrogen-rich (solar-composition) atmosphere.
After loss of its original, solar nebula–derived gaseous envelope,
Earth’s atmosphere was replenished. Model studies of the solar nebula
show that where Earth’s planetesimal building blocks formed, temper-
atures were too high to permit condensation and accumulation of water
and other volatile materials. This means that the water and gases mak-
ing up Earth’s secondary atmosphere must have been imported from
more distant regions of the Solar System, most likely by comets and as-
teroids that impacted the planet after the close of the major epoch of
planetary formation. The size of the atmosphere–ocean system at any
particular time during this stage of development depended on the net
balance between gains and losses of volatile materials resulting from im-
pacts and from geologic cycling between mantle and surface. As a con-
sequence of the decline in the rate of impacts during the earliest several
hundred million years of the planet’s history, it is likely that the bulk of
the ocean–atmosphere system accumulated relatively early, rather than
later, during the period between 4,400 and 3,800 million years ago.
According to solar evolution models, the luminosity of the young Sun
was 30% lower than it is today. Earth’s surface temperature would
have been cooler, and a global “greenhouse” would have been neces-
sary to keep the early ocean from freezing. The three greenhouse gases
most likely to have been available were ammonia (NH3), methane (CH4),
and carbon dioxide (CO2). Of these, ammonia and methane are more
efficient in promoting the greenhouse effect, but both are subject to rapid
From Big Bang to Primordial Planet 67

photodecomposition and could have played important roles only if their

supplies were being rapidly replenished. No sizable and thermodynam-
ically plausible source of ammonia is known, and it remains to be
demonstrated whether hydrothermal generation of methane on the early
Earth would have been adequate to achieve the needed greenhouse effect.
Although less efficient as a greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide seems cer-
tainly to have been the dominant carbon-containing gas released by vol-
canism and hydrothermal activity on the ancient planet, just as it is
today. Moreover, vaporization of impactors striking the planet would have
also released carbon dioxide (along with carbon monoxide) into the at-
mosphere, and in much larger amounts than methane. Calculations mod-
eling the climate of the early Earth show that the presence of atmospheric
carbon dioxide in amounts ranging from 100 to 1,000 times the amount
in the present atmosphere would have been adequate to maintain the
required greenhouse. Thus, the lack of heat generated by the low-
luminosity young Sun was offset by an atmospheric greenhouse effect,
with current considerations favoring assignment of most of this effect
to an atmosphere rich in carbon dioxide and containing only small
amounts of carbon monoxide and methane.
In contrast with this picture of a carbon dioxide–rich atmosphere,
most scenarios for chemical evolution call for a highly reducing at-
mosphere—one rich in methane rather than carbon dioxide—in which
to synthesize prebiotic organic compounds. This expectation is based
on the success of S. L. Miller’s pioneering experiments of 1953 in pro-
ducing amino acids by passing an electric discharge through a gaseous
mixture of methane, ammonia, and water vapor (experiments well sum-
marized in chapter 3).
Even before Miller’s work, however, the proposed existence of a
highly reduced methane-rich primordial atmosphere was a controver-
sial issue, and it remains so today. The chemical composition of gases
released from Earth’s interior depends on the equilibrium oxidation state
and temperature of the source regions from which they are emitted. If
metallic iron is present in such regions, as during the major epoch of
Earth’s accretion and core formation, carbon monoxide (CO), rather
than methane or carbon dioxide, is the predominant carbon-containing
gas released. Carbon monoxide is also the primary form in which car-
bon occurs in a primordial solar nebula and in gas pulses generated by
vaporization of impactors that are metal-rich. And geologic processes
commonly produce carbon dioxide—after metallic iron separated from
Earth’s mantle to sink to its core, carbon dioxide was the dominant
68 Alan W. Schwartz and Sherwood Chang

carbon-containing gas released, both at high temperatures by volcanism

and at lower temperatures in hydrothermal systems. In none of these
situations is methane other than a minor component.
Unfortunately, however, the answer to this important question of the
carbon source on the early Earth remains elusive. Geologic recycling
of the Earth’s crust has left no remnant of the earliest 650 million years
of Earth’s history from which the composition of the atmosphere could
be read, so the dominant form in which carbon occurred in the early
environment—whether as CO, CO2, or CH4 —remains a matter of con-
jecture. It is only when the truncated geologic record begins, at 3,800
million years ago, that we have firm evidence to resolve the matter. But
by this time, there is no question: Igneous rocks of this age have orig-
inal oxidation states that show carbon dioxide to have been the pre-
dominant carbon gas issuing from Earth’s interior.
Though severely heated and pressure-cooked, metasedimentary
rocks from near Isua in southwestern Greenland provide the earliest
and widest window into what Earth’s environment was like 3,800 mil-
lion years ago. The rocks from this region are a mixture of volcanic
debris and water-laid sediments, including lavas that congealed at high
temperatures as well as ordinary (if now geochemically altered) deposits
containing carbonate minerals and particles of graphitic carbon. The
chemistry of these rocks shows that carbon dioxide (and presumably
nitrogen as well as various noble gases) was present in the atmosphere,
and suggest that there was higher heat flow from Earth’s interior and,
presumably, more active volcanism and hydrothermal activity than to-
day. The sediments of the sequence signify that surface temperatures
were below 100 C, and their very presence—even in this small pre-
served sliver of ancient terrain—suggests that there were extensive
bodies of liquid water. Weathering, a hydrologic cycle, and a carbon
geochemical cycle—all perhaps driven by a form of geologic tectonism
akin to that occurring in island arc systems of today—can also be in-
ferred. To a considerable extent, the Isua rocks suggest surroundings
similar to those of the present day, though the environment probably
lacked atmospheric molecular oxygen, a byproduct of green plant pho-
tosynthesis. In general, the setting they suggest seems to differ little
from the shallow marine environment shown by the 3,500-million-
year-old sediments of Western Australia discussed in chapter 6—the
source of the earliest compelling evidence of life now known (and, like
the Isua setting, a wave-washed volcanic platform subject to episodic
volcanism and hydrothermal activity). It is even conceivable that such
From Big Bang to Primordial Planet 69

environments may have existed as early as 4400 million years ago,

although because the early rock record is missing, there is no way to
tell for sure.

Prebiotic Organic Syntheses

If carbon dioxide rather than methane was the dominant gaseous form
of carbon in the early environment, synthesis in the atmosphere of
organic compounds needed for the origin of life would have been de-
cidedly more difficult. This comparison is backed by many laboratory
experiments, and the conclusion holds regardless of whether the re-
acting gases are irradiated by electrons, photons, or ions (energy sources
selected, respectively, to simulate the effects of electrical and coronal
discharges, solar ultraviolet radiation, and both cosmic rays and mag-
netospheric particles). It also applies to gas mixtures that span oxida-
tion states from reducing (CH4 –N2 –H2O) to neutral (CO2 –N2 –H2O).
The overall productivity of the reactions studied depends strongly on
the “reducing power” of the gas mixture, the proportion of hydrogen
present in the gas mixture. Reactions in which methane is used as a
starting material yield abundant organic compounds of considerable
structural diversity, whereas those using carbon dioxide produce very
low yields and a limited array of compounds.
Although the actual nature of the early atmosphere remains to be
determined, the experimentally well established difficulty in synthe-
sizing organic compounds under chemically neutral conditions has led
researchers in this field to expand their efforts in two new directions—
studies of organic syntheses in hydrothermal systems (such as those as-
sociated with deep-sea fumaroles) and studies of the importation of ex-
traterrestrial organics to the primordial Earth via comets and asteroids.
In several important respects, the ocean–crust interface in hydrother-
mal systems is similar to the ocean–atmosphere interface. Inasmuch as
life itself must have emerged as a phase-bounded system, the formation,
dissipation, and reformation of small-scale interfaces must have been a
prerequisite for life. Relevant small-scale structures are provided near
the Earth’s surface by aerosols, organic films, and volcanic and inter-
planetary dust particles; and, at depth in the world’s oceans, by hy-
drothermal minerals, chemical precipitates, and vesicle-like structures of
organic or mineralic composition. Energy sources requisite for produc-
tion of organic compounds occur in both environments—at the plane-
tary surface, primarily sunlight; at oceanic depths, chemical disequilibria
70 Alan W. Schwartz and Sherwood Chang

between hydrothermal fluids and seawater. Both interfaces can act as

collecting zones for organic compounds formed or carried in from above
or below. But agencies that cause decomposition of organics also occur
in both—in near-surface settings, photodecomposition in the atmos-
phere or shallow seas and geothermal heating of products buried in
sediments; at oceanic depths, the recycling of synthesized organics into
fumaroles or the Earth’s hot interior.
Hydrothermal systems are present today both in shallow near-shore
environments and in deep marine environments. With regard to prebi-
otic syntheses on the early Earth, however, deep oceanic settings would
have afforded advantages not offered by those of the near-surface: They
would have been far less susceptible to effects of planetary impacts even
while maintaining an intimate connection to the Earth’s prime source
of chemical reducing power—oceanic, dissolved, ferrous iron. Thus,
deep-sea fumarolic vents are among the most promising of all early en-
vironments. There prebiotic evolution could have been sustained over
long periods, with minimal loss of the chemical reducing power nec-
essary for nonbiological synthesis of organic compounds.
Experimental evidence is emerging in support of the view that or-
ganic compounds can be formed under conditions prevalent in hy-
drothermal systems, but whether these dynamic systems were actually
the spawning grounds for life on Earth remains an open question.
Interestingly, hyperthermophilic microbes, which thrive in hydrother-
mal environments, are among the present-day organisms exhibiting the
most ancient ancestral lineages, as determined by ribosomal RNA se-
quences. As discussed in chapter 6, it is not known whether this asso-
ciation of primitiveness and hyperthermophily reflects the origin of life
in such settings or the selective preservation in them of microbial lin-
eages following catastrophic destruction of surface ecosystems. In ei-
ther case, however, conclusions based on phylogeny seem premature,
inasmuch as countless unknown organisms remain to be characterized
in the biosphere. The prebiotic Earth did not lack environments where
the origin of life might have occurred. The problem is to understand
which of these was most suitable and to define the steps taken during
chemical evolution.
Although many of the molecules regarded as potential starting ingre-
dients of life occur in comets and parent bodies of carbonaceous mete-
orites, it is not clear that they could have contributed to chemical evo-
lution and the origin of life. There are at least two reasons for this
uncertainty. First, the proportion of organic-rich impactors that would
From Big Bang to Primordial Planet 71

have reached the planet’s surface intact is highly uncertain. Some im-
pactors do reach Earth even today, as shown by Murchison and other
meteorites, but we can only speculate that the organic matter they sup-
plied was adequate for prebiotic evolution. Second, we do not know
whether, in the event of globally catastrophic impacts, surface conditions
on the primitive planet would have allowed the survival of imported or-
ganics, conditions that could well have destroyed native organics as well.
Sustained prebiotic evolution, like the ecosystems it eventually spawned,
could not have occurred until major impacts no longer threatened the
environment.
Theoretical assessment of extraterrestrial sources of organics that
may have played a role in life’s beginnings points to IDPs as the likely
predominant carriers. Today, such particles bring to Earth about 4000
million grams of carbon per year, and they may have contributed much
larger amounts early in the planet’s history. These small particles dom-
inate the mass flux of extraterrestrial materials arriving at Earth’s sur-
face, even though much larger, even boulder-sized, meteorites also rain
in. Survival of intact organics in the larger bodies is problematic be-
cause the energy released during hypervelocity collisions with Earth’s
surface is sufficient to vaporize much of the projectile (as well as a com-
parable amount of the impacted surface). It is conceivable that some
material in large impactors could survive, but how much is unknown
and has yet to be modeled quantitatively. And many unknowns attend
the question of IDPs: What organic compounds do they actually con-
tain, other than aromatic hydrocarbons? Could such compounds sur-
vive the heating that accompanies the deceleration of such particles as
they plunge through the atmosphere? Were the amounts and types of
the surviving organics sufficient to generate biological systems by chem-
ical evolution as they dissolved in, and were diluted by, Earth’s oceans?
With all the uncertainties involved, the only firm conclusion we can
draw is that both native organics and extraterrestrial organic matter
were probably present in the prebiotic milieu (figure 2.6).
Wherever the organic building blocks of the first biota came from,
their mere synthesis, albeit necessary, would not have been sufficient
for the emergence of biochemically functional molecules and, ulti-
mately, life. The mixture of molecules that formed the starting point
for the origin of life must have been sorted out by some combination
of physical and chemical processes. A. I. Oparin, the Russian biochemist,
was the first to propose, in the 1920s, a plausible scenario for how life
began. He started from the assumption that organic compounds would
72 Alan W. Schwartz and Sherwood Chang

Figure 2.6. Estimated production rates (in kilograms per year) of

organic carbon compounds from meteor shockwaves, high-temperature
chemical reactions in impact plumes, and in-fall of interplanetary dust
particles (IDPs) compared with such production from ultraviolet light
and electric discharges. Two sets of data are shown: The lower for a
“neutral” (CO2–N2–H2O) atmosphere; the higher for a “reducing”
(CH4–N2–H2O) atmosphere. The IDP flux is independent of atmos-
pheric composition. Overall, productivity decreases logarithmically
over time as the frequency and size of impactors decreases. (Adapted
from Chyba and Sagan 1992.)

have formed spontaneously in a primordial reducing atmosphere, but

he also realized that some kind of selection process must have occurred
to allow the first stages of prebiotic evolution to begin. This, he sug-
gested, might have been accomplished by the formation of a primitive
From Big Bang to Primordial Planet 73

cell-like entity. Indeed, this remains a viable possibility—the formation of

primitive lipids and lipid-based cell-like structures may have played an im-
portant role in organizing and simplifying the chaotic mixture of prebi-
otic compounds initially present. And perhaps minerals—as suggested in
the late 1920s by J. B. S. Bernal, a brilliant British biologist who theorized
about the origin of life—also played an essential role in the very first
stages of such selection on early Earth by selectively adsorbing and/or cat-
alyzing the reactions of certain groups of prebiotic compounds. Today,
many researchers would probably agree that a particularly critical event
in the origin of life was the appearance of self-replication in some set of
information-containing molecules (such as, for example, primitive nucleic
acids or proteins). But even after some degree of preselection and simpli-
fication had occurred, the spontaneous synthesis of any such highly
ordered macromolecule remains a formidable problem.
One important stumbling block for life’s origin is the necessity that
biological systems be composed of homochiral molecules. Many bio-
logically important organic molecules—for example, nucleotides and
amino acids—can exist in a multiplicity of structurally different iso-
meric forms. Some of these structural isomers are sufficiently different
that they can be separated by various physical or chemical techniques;
however, molecules that differ only in “handedness,” or chirality (such
as d- and l-nucleotides and amino acids), are virtually impossible to
separate under normal conditions. Therefore, the earliest prebiotic short
polymers of nucleotides (small nucleic acids) or of amino acids (small
polypeptides) seem likely to have been composed of random mixtures
of dextrorotatory and levorotatory (d and l) isomeric forms. But such
mixed, or heterochiral, structures are incapable of forming the regular
macromolecular structures required for biological activity.
Thus, the origin of living systems appears to have required forma-
tion of homochiral macromolecules from a random mix of heteroiso-
mers, chemically a difficult and seemingly unlikely prospect. But there
are several possible ways out of this problem. First, it has been sug-
gested, on the basis of physical theory, that under certain prebiotic con-
ditions the d and l isomers of chiral molecules, such as nucleotides and
amino acids, need not be formed in equal amounts—although the effect
of such discrimination is extremely small and would require amplifi-
cation by some other mechanism. Second, certain kinds of radiation
are known to destroy chiral molecules of a particular handedness at a
higher rate than those of the opposite form, a process leading to en-
richment in the surviving mix of one of the two isomers. Selective
74 Alan W. Schwartz and Sherwood Chang

preservation such as this may explain the presence of nonbiologically

formed amino acids with slight excesses of d and l isomers in the
Murchison meteorite. Third (and most likely), perhaps the molecules
themselves “discovered” the answer to the question of chirality.
It has long been suspected that, because of their particular chemical
structures, biologically important macromolecules such as DNA or
RNA should be capable of directing their own replication so that only
one chiral form of their component parts (for nucleotides, the d-isomer
rather than its l-enantiomer) would be selected from a mixture of het-
eroisomers. This has now been demonstrated. In one example, RNA-
like molecules were made; although containing the same set of genetic
information-storing purines and pyrimidines present in natural RNA,
these molecules were built on a different, “unnatural” structural back-
bone. Sets of short oligomers of these molecules that contained vari-
ous ratios of d- and l-nucleotide subunits were then compared in terms
of the ease with which they carried out a kind of self-replication reac-
tion. The results show that the homochiral sets of molecules replicated
faster than the heterochiral sets, suggesting that, in a true competitive
process, the all-d- or all-l-containing molecules would ultimately out-
compete their slower replicating d/l-mixed competitors. Thus, emer-
gence of order, a prerequisite for the origin of life, can indeed be viewed
as a property of purely molecular systems.
It seems inescapable that matter formed in stars now long dead can
be traced from the collapse of interstellar clouds, through the evolu-
tion of the solar nebula and the assembly and distribution of plan-
etesimals in our Solar System, to the formation of planets and the origin
and evolution of life on Earth. Through this long path, the fundamen-
tal physical and chemical properties of the biogenic elements that
emerged from cosmic evolution have manifested themselves ultimately
in the molecular systems engaged in biological evolution on our planet.
The collections of meteorites in laboratories and museums offer tangi-
ble proof that life is composed of the stuff of stars. Truly, our roots
extend far beyond the Sun and deeply into the past. The search for
understanding of life’s origin in the broadest context affords exciting,
indeed virtually unlimited, opportunities for scientific research. Unlike
the question of the origin of the Universe, the province mainly of physi-
cists and philosophers, answers to questions bearing on where, when,
and how life began can be sought using the tools of virtually all scientific
disciplines.
From Big Bang to Primordial Planet 75

FURTHER READING

Origin of the Elements

Burbidge, E. M., G. R. Burbidge, W. A. Fowler, and F. Hoyle. 1957. Synthesis

of the elements in stars. Reviews of Modern Physics 29:547–60.
Trimble, V. 1996. The origin and evolution of the chemical elements. In The
origin and evolution of the Universe, ed. B. Zuckerman and M.A. Malkan,
89–107. Boston: Jones and Bartlett.

Interstellar Dust and Molecules

Gibb, E. L., D. C. B. Whittet, W. A. Schutte, A. C. A. Boogert, J. E. Chiar,

P. Ehrenfreund, P. A. Gerakines, J. V. Keane, A. G. G. M. Tielens, E. F. van
Dishoeck, and O. Kerkhof. 2000. An inventory of interstellar ices toward
the embedded protostar W33A. Astrophysical Journal 536:347–56.
Irvine, W. M., and R. F. Knacke. 1989. The chemistry of interstellar gas and
grains. In Origin and evolution of planetary and satellite atmospheres, ed.
S. K. Atreya, J. B. Pollack, and M. S. Matthews, 748–49. Tucson: University
of Arizona Press.
Langer, W. D., E. F. van Dishoeck, E. A. Bergin, G. A. Blake, A. G. G. M. Tielens,
T. Velusamy, and D. C. B. Whittet. 2000. Chemical evolution of protostellar
matter. In Protostars and planets IV, ed. V. Mannings, A. Boss, and S. Russell,
29–57. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

Star and Planet Formation

Andre, P., D. Ward-Thompson, and M. Barsony. 2000. From pre-stellar cores

to protostars: The initial conditions of star formation. In Protostars and
planets IV, ed. V. Mannings, A. Boss, and S. Russell, 59–96. Tucson:
University of Arizona Press.
Canup, R. M., and C. B. Agnor. 2000. Accretion of the terrestrial planets and
the Earth–Moon system. In Origin of the Earth and Moon, ed. R. M. Canup
and K. Righter, 113–29. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Hollenbach, D. J., H.W. Yorke, and D. Johnstone. 2000. Disk dispersal around
young stars. In Protostars and planets IV, ed. V. Mannings, A. Boss, and
S. Russell, 401–28. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Kortenkamp, S. J., E. Kokubo, and S. J. Weidenschilling. 2000. Formation of
planetary embryos. In Origin of the Earth and Moon, ed. R. M. Canup and
K. Righter, 85–100. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Mundy, L. G., L. W. Looney, and W.J. Welch. 2000. The structure and evolution
of envelopes and disks in young stellar systems. In Protostars and planets IV,
ed. V. Mannings, A. Boss, and S. Russell, 355–76. Tucson: University of
Arizona Press.
Weidenschilling, S. J. 1997. Planetesimals from stardust. In From stardust to
planetesimals, ed. Y. J. Pendleton and A. G. G. M. Tielens, 281–94. Provo:
Brigham Young University Press.
76 Alan W. Schwartz and Sherwood Chang

Wuchterl, G., T. Guillot, and J. J. Lissauer. 2000. Giant planet formation. In

Protostars and planets IV, ed. V. Mannings, A. Boss, and S. Russell,
1081–109. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

Organic Chemistry of Comets, Interplanetary Dust Particles,

Asteroids, and Meteorites

Clemett, S. L., C. R. Maechling, R. N. Zare, P. D. Swan, and R. M. Walker. 1993.

Identification of complex aromatic molecules in individual interplanetary
dust particles. Science 262:721–25.
Cronin, J. R., and S. Chang. 1993. Organic matter in meteorites: Molecular and
isotopic analyses of the Murchison meteorite. In The chemistry of life’s ori-
gin, ed. J. M. Greenberg, C. X. Mendoza-Gomez, and V. Pirronello,
209–58. Boston: Kluwer.
Cruikshank, D. P. 1997. Organic matter in the outer Solar System: From the
meteorites to the Kuiper belt. In From stardust to planetesimals, ed. Y. J.
Pendleton and A. G. G. M. Tielens, 315–33. Provo: Brigham Young University
Press.
Fomenkova, M. N., S. Chang, and L. M. Mukhin. 1994. Carbonaceous compo-
nents in comet Halley dust. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 58:4503–12.
Irvine, W. M., F. P. Schloerb, J. Crovisier, B. Fegley, and M. J. Mumma. 2000.
Comets: A link between interstellar and nebular chemistry. In Protostars and
planets IV, ed. V. Mannings, A. Boss, and S. Russell, 1159–1200. Tucson:
University of Arizona Press.
Mumma, M. J. 1997. Organic volatiles in comets: Their relation to interstellar
ices and solar nebula material. In From stardust to planetesimals, ed. Y. J.
Pendleton and A. G. G. M. Tielens, 369–96. Provo: Brigham Young University
Press.
Prinn, R. G., and B. Fegley Jr. 1989. Solar nebula chemistry. In Origin and evo-
lution of planetary and satellite atmospheres, ed. S.K. Atreya, J. B. Pollack,
and M. S. Matthews, 78–136. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

Early Geophysical Evolution

Abe, Y., E. Ohtani, T. Okuchi, K. Righter, and M. Drake. 2000. Water in the
early Earth. In Origin of the Earth and Moon, ed. R. M. Canup and
K. Righter, 413–33. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Owen, T. C., and A. Bar-Nun. 2000. Volatile contributions from icy planetesi-
mals. In Origin of the Earth and Moon, ed. R. M. Canup and K. Righter,
459–71. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Shock, E. L., J. P. Amend, and M. Y. Zolotov. 2000. The early Earth vs. the
origin of life. In Origin of the Earth and Moon, ed. R. M. Canup and
K. Righter, 527–43. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Sleep, N. H., K. J. Zahnle, J. F. Kasting, and H. J. Morowitz. 1989. Annihilation of
ecosystems by large asteroid impacts on the early Earth. Nature 342:139–42.
From Big Bang to Primordial Planet 77

Stevenson, D. J. 1983. The nature of the Earth prior to the oldest known rock
record: The Hadean Earth. In Earth’s earliest biosphere, its origin and evo-
lution, ed. J. W. Schopf, 32–40. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Walker, J. C. G., C. Klein, M. Schidlowski, J. W. Schopf, D. J. Stevenson, and
M. R. Walter. 1983. Environmental evolution of the Archean-Early
Proterozoic Earth. In Earth’s earliest biosphere, its origin and evolution, ed.
J. W. Schopf, 260–90. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Prebiotic Evolution and the Origins of Life

Bolli, M., R. Micura, and A. Eschenmoser. 1997. Pyranosyl-RNA: Chiroselective

self-assembly of base sequences by ligative oligomerization of tetranucleotide-
2 ,3 -cyclophosphates (with a commentary concerning the origin of biomole-
cular homochirality). Chemical Biology 4:309–20.
Bonner, W. A. 1998. The quest for chirality. In Physical origin of homochirality in
life, ed. D. B. Cline, 17–49. Woodbury, N. Y.: American Institute of Physics.
Brack, A., ed. 1998. Molecular origins of life: Assembling pieces of the puzzle.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cairns-Smith, A. G. 1982. Genetic takeover and the mineral origins of life.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Chyba, C. F., and C. Sagan. 1992. Endogenous production, exogenous delivery
and impact-shock synthesis of organic molecules: An inventory for the ori-
gins of life. Nature 355:125–32.
Chang, S. 1993. Prebiotic synthesis in planetary environments. In The chemistry
of life’s origin, ed. J. M. Greenberg, C. X. Mendoza-Gomez, and V. Pirronello,
259–99. Boston: Kluwer.
Lahav, N. 1999. Biogenesis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Shock, E. L. 1990. Geochemical constraints on the origin of organic compounds
in hydrothermal systems. Origins of Life 20:331–67.
chapter 3

Formation of the Building

Blocks of Life
s ta n l e y l . m i l l e r a n d a n to n i o l a z c a n o

INTRODUCTION

Along with his books, notes, letters, and papers, Charles Robert Darwin
bequeathed two recipes to succeeding generations. The first, written in
his wife’s recipe book, describes the way to boil rice:
Add salt to the water and when boiling hot, stir in the rice. Keep it
boiling for twelve minutes by the watch, then pour off the water and set
the pot on live coals during ten minutes—the rice is then fit for the table.

His second recipe appears in a letter to his friend Joseph Dalton Hooker
(figure 3.1). Sent on February 1, 1871, this letter summarizes Darwin’s
rarely expressed ideas on the emergence of life and his views on the
molecular nature of the basic biological processes:
It is often said that all the conditions for the first production of a living
organism are now present, which could ever have been present. But if
(& oh what a big if) we could conceive in some warm little pond with all
sorts of ammonia & phosphoric salts,—light, heat, electricity &c present,
that a protein compound was chemically formed, ready to undergo still
more complex changes, at the present day such matter would be instantly
devoured, or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living
creatures were formed.

By the time Darwin wrote this letter, DNA had already been dis-
covered, although its central role in genetic processes would not be

78
Figure 3.1. Charles Darwin’s letter to Joseph Hooker, dated February 1,
1871. In spite of the handwriting, Darwin’s ideas on a “warm little pond”
are readable. Adapted from Calvin 1969.
80 Stanley L. Miller and Antonio Lazcano

TABLE 3.1 DISCOVERY AND CHARACTERIZATION OF

IMPORTANT BIOCHEMICAL MONOMERS

Year Discoverers Monomers

1810 W. H. Wollaston Cystine (urinary calculi)

1819 J. L. Proust Leucine (fermenting cheese)
1823 M. E. Chevreul Fatty acids (butyric to stearic)
1869 F. Miescher DNA (pus cells)
1882 A. Kossel Guanine (yeast nuclei)
1883 A. Kossel and A. Neumann Thymine
1886 A. Kossel and A. Neumann Adenine
1894 A. Kossel and A. Neumann Cytosine
1900 A. Ascoli Uracil
1909 P. T. Levene and W. A. Javok Deoxyribose
1913 W. Küsler Porphyrin
1906–1936 P. T. Levene et al. Ribose, ribonucleotides

Based on Leicester (1974) and Letham and Stewart (1977).

deciphered for eighty years. Moreover, the role of proteins in many

biological processes had been established, and many of the building
blocks of life had been chemically characterized (table 3.1). Of equal
significance, by Darwin’s day, the chemical gap separating living from
nonliving systems had been bridged, at least in principle, by laboratory
syntheses of organic molecules. These syntheses challenged the long-
entrenched tradition that organic compounds were fundamentally dif-
ferent from inorganic materials. In 1827, for example, Jöns Jacob
Berzelius—probably the most influential chemist of his day—wrote that
“art cannot combine the elements of inorganic matter in the manner
of living nature.”
In 1828, however, Berzelius’s friend and former student Friedrich
Wöhler demonstrated that urea, an organic compound fundamental to
higher organisms, could be formed in high yield “without the need of
an animal kidney” simply by heating ammonium cyanate (Leicester
1974). Wöhler’s work represented the first recorded synthesis of an or-
ganic compound from purely inorganic starting materials. This bench-
mark experiment ushered in a new era of chemical research. By 1850,
Adolph Strecker had achieved the laboratory synthesis of the amino
acid alanine from a mixture of acetaldehyde, ammonia, and hydrogen
cyanide; this work was followed by the experiments of Alexandr M.
Butlerov, who showed that treatment of formaldehyde with a strong
alkaline catalyst, such as sodium hydroxide, leads to the formation of
sugars (table 3.2).
Formation of the Building Blocks of Life 81

TABLE 3.2 EARLY (19 TH - CENTURY ) ABIOTIC

SYNTHESES OF BIOCHEMICAL MONOMERS

Compound(s)
Starting Materials Synthesized Reference

NH4NCO S urea Wöhler 1828

HCH3CHO  NH3  HCN S alanine Strecker 1850
OH
HCHO S sugars Butlerov 1861

The laboratory synthesis of organic, biochemically relevant com-

pounds was soon extended, offering an increasing array of products
and more complicated experimental settings. By the end of the 19th
century, electric discharges and diverse gas mixtures had been used to
achieve the nonbiological synthesis of sugars and fatty acids (Glocker
and Lind 1939). Work of this type was carried into the 20th century
by several workers, notably Walther Löb and Oskar Baudish, who
showed that amino acids could be synthesized by exposing wet for-
mamide (CHONH2) either to a silent electric discharge (Löb 1913) or
to ultraviolet (UV) light (Baudish 1913). At this time, however, no one
recognized that the abiotic synthesis of organic compounds was a pre-
requisite for the origin of living systems, and no one conceived of these
pioneering experiments as laboratory simulations of Darwin’s “warm
little pond.” Instead, working on the general assumption that the ear-
liest forms of life were autotrophs—simple plant-like microorganisms
that use carbon dioxide (CO2) rather than organic matter as their car-
bon source—the scientific community was attempting to understand
the autotrophic mechanisms of nitrogen uptake and CO2 fixation in
green plants.

THE HETEROTROPHIC ORIGIN OF LIFE

In the 1860s, Louis Pasteur’s swan-necked flask experiments disproved

the notion of spontaneous generation. Many believe that the publica-
tion of these experiments cut short the scientific discussion of how life
began, relegating it to the realm of useless speculation for decades. But
the scientific literature of the first part of the 20th century tells a
different story. In fact, many major scientists attempted to solve this
problem. They proposed a fairly wide spectrum of explanations, rang-
ing from the ideas of Eduard Pflüger on the role of hydrogen cyanide
in the origin of life to those of Svante Arrhenius on panspermia. In
82 Stanley L. Miller and Antonio Lazcano

addition, Leonard Troland hypothesized the existence of a primordial

enzyme formed by chance events in the primitive ocean, Alfonso L.
Herrera offered a sulfocyanic theory of the origin of cells, and R. B.
Harvey suggested a heterotrophic origin of life in a high-temperature
environment. And, in a provocative 1926 paper, Hermann J. Muller
argued for the abrupt random formation of a single mutable gene en-
dowed with catalytic and autoreplicative properties (for further dis-
cussion, see Lazcano 1995).
However diverse, these explanations fell on stony scientific ground.
These incomplete speculative schemes, largely devoid of direct sup-
porting evidence, could take no root because they were not subject to
fruitful experimental testing. Some of these hypotheses treated life as an
emergent feature of nature and thus attempted to understand its origin
in an evolutionary context. But in the prevailing view, the first forms of
life emerged essentially full-blown as complex photosynthetic microbes,
endowed from the start with the ability to take in atmospheric CO2
and combine it with water to synthesize organic compounds.
One proposal, made in the early 1920s by the Russian biochemist
Alexandr Ivanovich Oparin, contrasted sharply with the prevalent idea
of an autotrophic origin of life. An evolutionary plant biologist trained
as a biochemist, Oparin could not reconcile his Darwinian view—
gradual slow evolution from the simple to the complex—with the idea
that life emerged in a fully endowed form. That is, he could not accept
the notion that primordial microorganisms possessed chlorophyll, CO2-
capturing enzymes, and all the other biochemical prerequisites for car-
rying out the complicated process of autotrophic metabolism. Because
heterotrophs (animals, fungi, and animal-like microbes that obtain
energy and grow by breaking down ready-made foodstuffs) are meta-
bolically simpler than autotrophs (plants and plant-like microbes that
first build foodstuffs, then break them down for energy and growth),
Oparin argued that heterotrophs must have evolved before autotrophs.
Oparin also realized that anaerobic heterotrophs (microorganisms that
use the metabolic process of fermentation to live in the absence of oxy-
gen) are simpler than aerobic (oxygen-requiring) heterotrophs. Thus,
he thought that anaerobes must have preceded aerobes. (This idea
seemed particularly appealing because the biochemical mechanisms of
fermentation are simple; moreover, they are present in all organisms
living today—anaerobes and aerobes, both.) Thus, given the simplic-
ity and ubiquity of fermentative metabolism, Oparin (1924) suggested
that the first organisms must have been heterotrophic anaerobic bacteria.
Formation of the Building Blocks of Life 83

Such organisms, he conjectured, did not make their own food; rather,
they obtained foodstuffs in the form of organic materials present in the
primitive milieu.
A careful reading of Oparin’s 1924 pamphlet shows that, at first, he
did not assume that the primitive atmosphere was anoxic (devoid of
molecular oxygen, O2). Rather, he proposed that carbides (carbon–
metal compounds) were extruded from the young Earth’s interior. Some
of these carbides would have reacted with water vapor to form hydro-
carbons (organic compounds composed solely of atoms of hydrogen
and carbon), while others would have oxidized to form more complex
oxygen-containing compounds such as aldehydes, alcohols, and ketones
(e.g. acetone, CH3COCH3). Ammonia (NH3) would have been pres-
ent, as well, formed by the hydrolysis of nitrides (nitrogen–metal com-
pounds) according to the following reactions:

FemCn  4mH2O S mFe3O4  C3nH8m

FeN  3H2O S Fe(OH)3  NH3

Thereafter, the various organic molecules would have reacted among

themselves and with ammonia to form “very complicated compounds,”
ultimately giving rise to proteins and carbohydrates (Oparin 1924).
Oparin elaborated and refined his ideas in 1936, publishing them
first in Russian and shortly thereafter in English (Oparin 1938). In this
new book, he assumed the existence of a highly reducing anoxic envi-
ronment in which geologically produced iron carbides reacted with
steam to form hydrocarbons. These hydrocarbons would then be oxi-
dized (with the oxygen coming from the hot vaporous water) to form
aldehydes, alcohols, ketones, and so forth—compounds that would, in
turn, react with ammonia to form nitrogen-containing amines, amides,
and ammonium salts. The resulting protein-like compounds and other
molecules served as constituents of a hot dilute soup within which they
aggregated to form simple colloidal globular systems, or coacervate
droplets. These droplets would evolve into the first heterotrophic mi-
crobes. Oparin, like Darwin before him, did not address the formation
of nucleic acids (an unsurprising omission, since the role of DNA and
RNA in genetic processes was barely suspected at the time).
For Oparin (1938), a “highly reducing” atmosphere corresponded to
a mixture of methane (CH4), ammonia (NH3), and water vapor (H2O),
with or without additional gaseous hydrogen (H2)—one of several such
reducing mixtures listed in table 3.3. Interestingly, the atmosphere of
84 Stanley L. Miller and Antonio Lazcano

TABLE 3.3 TYPES OF PLANETARY ATMOSPHERES

Atmosphere Composition(s)

Reducing CH4, NH3, N2, H2O, H2

CO2, N2, H2O, H2
CO2, H2, H2O
Neutral CO2, N2, H2O
Oxidizing CO2, N2, H2O, O2

Jupiter contains these very gases, with H2 in large excess over CH4.
Oparin’s proposal of a primordial reducing atmosphere—based, in part,
on Vernadsky’s idea that the lifeless early Earth must have been anoxic
because O2 is produced by plants—was a brilliant inference derived
from a just fledging knowledge of solar atomic abundances and plan-
etary atmospheres. In sum, four benchmark contributions stand out in
Oparin’s 1938 treatise:

1. The hypothesis that heterotrophs and anaerobic fermentation

were primordial
2. The proposal of a reducing atmosphere for the prebiotic
synthesis and accumulation of organic compounds
3. The postulated transition from heterotrophy to autotrophy
4. The considerable detail with which these new concepts were
addressed

PREBIOTIC SYNTHESIS OF AMINO ACIDS

To buttress his intuition, Oparin needed to demonstrate that organic

compounds could form in the absence of living systems. Although he
performed no experimental simulations of primordial processes, he rec-
ognized that a number of laboratory studies supported his thesis of pre-
biotic chemical evolution—and hence the heterotrophy of the first life
forms. Among these were experiments showing the nonbiological syn-
thesis of sugars (Butlerov’s work of 1861), esters, and ethers, as well
as the polymerization of glycine ethyl ester and formaldehyde (H2CO),
which Oparin’s mentor, A. N. Bakh, investigated. Surprisingly, Oparin’s
1938 review mentions neither Strecker’s synthesis of alanine (1850) nor
Löb’s use of electric discharges to synthesize several amino acids (1913).
Presumably, Oparin merely overlooked these studies.
Formation of the Building Blocks of Life 85

Figure 3.2. The apparatus used in the first electric discharge–

powered synthesis of amino acids and other organic compounds
under conditions designed to simulate those of the primitive
Earth. It was made entirely of glass, except for the tungsten elec-
trodes (Miller 1953).

Firm experimental evidence came first from the laboratory of Harold

Clayton Urey, who was studying the chemical events associated with
origin of the Solar System. Urey (1952) proposed that Earth’s primor-
dial atmosphere was hydrogen-rich, and hence highly reducing. In a
laboratory experiment designed to simulate such a setting, the first suc-
cessful prebiotic amino acid synthesis was achieved using electric dis-
charge as the energy source (figure 3.2) and a strongly reducing model
atmosphere of CH4, NH3, H2O, and H2 (Miller 1953). Subsequent
86 Stanley L. Miller and Antonio Lazcano

TABLE 3.4 ORGANIC COMPOUNDS FORMED BY

SPARKING A GASEOUS MIXTURE OF METHANE ,
AMMONIA , WATER VAPOR , AND HYDROGEN

Yield Yield
Compound (mM) (%)

Glycine 630 2.1

Glycolic acid 560 1.9
Sarcosine 50 0.25
Alanine 340 1.7
Lactic acid 310 1.6
N-Methylalanine 10 0.07
-Amino-n-butyric acid 50 0.34
-Aminoisobutyric acid 1 0.007
-Hydroxybutyric acid 50 0.34
-Alanine 150 0.76
Succinic acid 40 0.27
Aspartic acid 4 0.024
Glutamic acid 6 0.051
Iminodiacetic acid 55 0.37
Iminoacetic propionic acid 15 0.13
Formic acid 2330 4.0
Acetic acid 150 0.51
Propionic acid 130 0.66
Urea 20 0.034
N-Methyl urea 15 0.051

The percentage yields are based on the amount of carbon present initially as
methane (59 nmoles  710 mg of carbon).

experiments yielded a score of different amino acids as well as hydroxy

acids, short aliphatic acids, and urea (table 3.4). As expected, the exper-
iments showed that the amino acids were present as racemic mixtures
(i.e. each amino acid occurs in two stereoisomeric forms—the form
that occurs in proteins and the nonbiological mirror image of this form).
Surprisingly, however, the experiments did not produce a random mix
of organic molecules; rather, a fairly small number of compounds formed,
and these in substantial quantities. And, with a few exceptions, the
compounds synthesized were of the kinds that make up living systems.
Later investigations examined the precise chemical mechanisms in-
volved in the synthesis of the amino acids and hydroxy acids formed
in the initial spark discharge experiment (Miller 1955). The presence
of large quantities of hydrogen cyanide, aldehydes, and ketones in the
water-filled reaction flask (figure 3.3)—organic compounds clearly
Figure 3.3. The concentrations of ammonia (NH3), hydrogen cyanide (HCN),
and aldehydes (CHO-containing compounds) present in the lowermost U-tube
of the apparatus shown in figure 3.2. The concentrations of the amino acids
(NH2- and COOH-containing compounds) present in the lower flask are also
shown. These amino acids were produced from the sparking of a gaseous
mixture of methane (CH4), ammonia (NH3), water vapor (H2O), and hydro-
gen (H2) in the upper flask. The concentrations of NH3, HCN, and aldehydes
decrease over time as they are increasingly converted to amino acids.
88 Stanley L. Miller and Antonio Lazcano

derived from the methane, ammonia, and hydrogen in the original reac-
tion mixture—showed that the amino acids were not formed directly
in the electric discharge. Rather, their formation was the outcome of a
particular set of organic chemical reactions (known to chemists as a
“Strecker-like” synthesis) that involved aqueous phase interactions
among highly reactive intermediates. The reactions are summarized in
scheme 3.1.

Scheme 3.1.

Detailed studies of the equilibrium and rate constants of these reactions

have also been performed (Miller 1955). The results demonstrate that
both the amino acids and the hydroxy acids can be synthesized in a sim-
ulated primitive ocean even in highly diluted concentrations of hydrogen
cyanide (HCN) and aldehyde. The reaction rates depend on temperature
and pH as well as on the concentrations of HCN, NH3, and aldehyde.
And they are rapid on a geological time scale: The half-lives for the hy-
drolysis of the intermediate products in these reactions—amino nitriles
and hydroxy nitriles—are less than 1000 years at 0C (Miller 1998).
Moreover, there are no known steps to slow the process. An example of
a geologically rapid prebiotic synthesis is that of the amino acids pres-
ent in the Murchison meteorite (discussed in chapter 2), which appar-
ently took place in less than 10,000 years (Peltzer et al. 1984). These re-
sults suggest that if the prebiotic environment of the early Earth was
reducing, the synthesis of amino acids was efficient and did not consti-
tute a limiting step in the emergence of living systems.
A Strecker synthesis of amino acids on the early Earth would require
the presence of the ammonium ion (NH4) in the prebiotic environ-
ment. Ammonia is highly soluble in water; thus, if the buffer capacity
of the primitive oceans and sediments was sufficient to maintain the
pH at 8.1, NH4 would have been available. However, gaseous am-
monia is rapidly decomposed by UV light. Thus, the absence of a sig-
nificant layer of ozone (O3)—lacking in early Earth history owing to
the absence of O2-producing, photosynthesizing autotrophs—must
Formation of the Building Blocks of Life 89

TABLE 3.5 PRESENT- DAY VALUES OF FREE ENERGY

SOURCES AVERAGED OVER THE EARTH

Energy per year

2
Source (cal cm ) (J cm2)

Total radiation from Sun 260,000 1,090,000

Ultraviolet light
3000 Å 3,400 14,000
2500 Å 563 2,360
2000 Å 41 170
1500 Å 1.7 7
Electric discharges 4.0a 17
Cosmic rays 0.0015 0.006
Radioactivity (to 1.0 km depth) 0.8 3.0
Volcanoes 0.13 0.5
Shock waves 1.1b 4.6
a
3 cal cm2 of corona discharge plus 1 cal cm2 of lightning per year.
b
1 cal cm2 of this represents shock waves of lightning bolts (an amount also included as energy
from electric discharges).

have imposed an upper limit on the quantity of NH4 resident in the

atmosphere. A more realistic atmosphere for the primitive Earth may
be a mixture of CH4 and N2 with traces of NH3. Experimental evidence
shows that, powered by electric discharges, this mixture of gases is also
quite effective in producing amino acids (Miller 1998). Nevertheless,
such an atmosphere would be strongly reducing.
A wide variety of direct sources of energy must certainly have been
available on the primitive Earth (table 3.5). Among these, solar
radiation (rather than atmospheric electricity, simulated by electric dis-
charges) was probably the major source of energy reaching Earth’s
surface. However, it is very unlikely that any single energy source could
account for all of the organic syntheses that occurred. The importance
of a given energy source in prebiotic evolution can be calculated by
multiplying the estimated amount of available energy by its established
efficiency for organic synthesis. Given our current ignorance of the pre-
biotic environment (we have no direct geologic evidence for several
hundred million years of Earth’s history), it is impossible to make ab-
solute assessments of the relative significance of each energy source.
For instance, neither pyrolysis (a breakdown of compounds due to in-
tense heating) at 800 to 1200C of a mixture of CH4 and NH3, nor
the action of UV light on a strongly reducing atmosphere, yields large
amounts of amino acids. But pyrolysis of a mixture of methane, ethane
90 Stanley L. Miller and Antonio Lazcano

(C2H6), and other hydrocarbons gives good yields of phenylacetylene

(C8H6), whose hydration produces phenylacetaldehyde. And in the pre-
biotic ocean, phenylacetaldehyde could have participated in a Strecker
synthesis as a precursor to the amino acids phenylalanine and tyrosine.
Solar radiation may have been the major energy source reaching Earth’s
surface, but electric discharges were evidently the most important source
of HCN. Hydrogen cyanide is universally recognized as a crucial inter-
mediate in many prebiotic organic syntheses, including the formation of
amino nitriles by Strecker-type syntheses. In addition, HCN polymers also
serve as sources of amino acids. Ferris et al. (1978) established that, in
addition to being a source of urea, guanidine, and oxalic acid, HCN poly-
mers can hydrolyze to form glycine, alanine, aspartic acid, and -
aminoisobutyric acid; however, the reported yields of these amino acids
are not high, the largest being that of glycine, at approximately 1%.

Amino Acid Synthesis in

Mildly Reducing and Nonreducing Atmospheres

We are fairly certain that free oxygen was absent from Earth’s pri-
mordial environment. But the composition of the primitive atmosphere
remains elusive. Suggested atmospheres span the range from strongly re-
ducing (CH4  NH3  H2O, CO  N2  H2O, or CO2  N2  H2)
to chemically neutral (CO2  N2  H2O). For the most part, atmos-
pheric scientists tend to favor neutral (nonreducing) compositions
whereas specialists in prebiotic chemistry favor a more reducing
makeup, a composition that renders abiotic synthesis of amino acids
especially efficient. (In contrast, the carbon source—CH4, CO, or CO2—
would not affect the prebiotic synthesis of purines and sugars as long
as sufficient H2 remained available.)
Unfortunately, gas mixtures containing CO and CO2 have received
substantially less experimental attention than have those containing
CH4. Spark discharge experiments using CH4, CO, or CO2 as a car-
bon source together with various amounts of H2 have shown that the
mixtures containing methane produce the highest yields of amino acids
(figure 3.4), but experiments using CO or CO2 are almost as produc-
tive if the H2/C ratio in the gas mixture is high. Without an excess of
hydrogen, however, the amino acid yields are very low, especially when
CO2 is the sole carbon source. The suite of amino acids produced in
CH4-based experiments (listed in table 3.4) is similar to that first
reported by Miller (1953). But in experiments using CO or CO2, the
Formation of the Building Blocks of Life 91

Figure 3.4. Yields of amino acids (as a percentage of initial carbon) produced
in three sets of electric discharge experiments carried out in the apparatus
shown in figure 3.2. The experiments used methane (CH4), carbon monoxide
(CO), or carbon dioxide (CO2) as the carbon source, together with hydrogen
(H2), nitrogen (N2), and, in some cases, ammonia (NH3). Regardless of car-
bon source, all the experiments produced similar yields of amino acids. The
experiments were conducted at room temperature over 2-day periods of con-
tinuous spark discharge; partial pressures of N2, CO, or CO2 were 100 torr;
the lower flask contained 100 ml of water but no NH3.

simplest amino acid, glycine, predominates; little else is produced ex-

cept for small amounts of alanine (Miller 1998).
Such results imply that CH4 is the best carbon source for abiotic syn-
theses, especially of amino acids. But what if CO or CO2 were predom-
inant in the early atmosphere? Glycine is virtually the only amino acid
produced in spark discharge experiments using CO or CO2; but as the
primitive ocean matured, reactions between glycine (CH2[NH2]COOH),
formaldehyde (H2CO), and hydrogen cyanide (HCN) would have gen-
erated other amino acids such as alanine, aspartic acid, and serine. For
example, at pH  9, synthesis of serine is favored at H2CO concen-
trations greater than 103 M, as shown in scheme 3.2.

Scheme 3.2.
92 Stanley L. Miller and Antonio Lazcano

It is possible that the simple mixtures of organic chemicals made us-

ing CO or CO2 as a carbon source lacked the diversity required for pre-
biotic evolution. However, we do not know which of the 20 biologically
common amino acids were actually required for the emergence of life.
We can say that although CO and CO2 are less favorable than CH4 for
amino acid prebiotic synthesis, the amino acids produced from CO and
CO2 may have been adequate. Interestingly, under some conditions, the
spark discharge yields of amino acids, HCN, and aldehydes are about
the same whether the gas mixtures used CH4, CO (at H2/CO  1), or
CO2 (at H2/CO2  2) as their sole source of carbon. However, H2 grav-
itationally escapes from Earth’s atmosphere, so it is not clear how the
prebiotic atmosphere could have maintained the high hydrogen-to-
carbon ratios demanded by the last two reaction mixtures.

PREBIOTIC SYNTHESIS OF NUCLEIC ACID BASES

Joseph Louis Proust was a French chemist whose belief in the “law of
constant proportions” kept him busy purifying and analyzing various
chemical compounds. In 1807, while teaching in Madrid, he undertook
a study of aqueous solutions of HCN. He found that if the solutions
were basic, having a pH  7.0, a complex polymer was produced, to-
gether with several other uncharacterized compounds. In retrospect, it
seems quite possible that adenine, one of the components of nucleic acids,
was one of Proust’s uncharacterized side-products. Proust’s work
notwithstanding, it was 1960 before the world understood that the
components of nucleic acids could be synthesized abiotically. At that
time, John Oró was studying the synthesis of amino acids from aque-
ous solutions of HCN and NH3. In a landmark contribution, he re-
ported the abiotic formation of adenine—one of the two purines in the
nucleic acids of all living systems (Oró 1960).
Oró’s synthesis of adenine is indeed remarkable. If concentrated
solutions of ammonium cyanide are refluxed for a few days, adenine
is obtained in as much as 0.5% yield, along with the side-products
4-aminoimidazole-5-carboxamide and a cyanide polymer (Oró 1960;
Oró and Kimball 1961, 1962). The probable mechanism of this syn-
thesis is shown in scheme 3.3.
In this sequence, the limiting reaction is the penultimate step, in which
the HCN tetramer (diaminomaleonitrile) combines with formamidine
to form aminoimidazole carbonitrile. However, as demonstrated by
Ferris and Orgel (1966), this step can be bypassed by a two-photon
Formation of the Building Blocks of Life 93

Scheme 3.3.

photochemical rearrangement of diaminomaleonitrile (scheme 3.4),

which proceeds readily in sunlight to give high yields of aminoimida-
zole carbonitrile (AICN):

Scheme 3.4.

On the primitive Earth, formation of the tetramer (diaminomale-

onitrile) may have been accelerated in a eutectic solution (one at its
lowest possible melting point) of HCN and H2O, which could rea-
sonably have existed in polar regions. High yields of the HCN tetramer
have been reported from experiments in which dilute cyanide solutions
were cooled for a few months to temperatures between 10 and 30C
(Sanchez, Ferris, and Orgel 1966a). Production of adenine by the poly-
merization of HCN is also speeded by the presence of formaldehyde
and other aldehydes; these, too, were probably available in the prebi-
otic environment (Voet and Schwartz 1983).
The prebiotic synthesis of guanine, the other purine of biological
nucleic acids, was first studied under conditions that required unrealisti-
cally high concentrations of several precursors, including ammonia
(Sanchez, Ferris, and Orgel 1967). On the basis of subsequent findings, it
was then proposed that, together with guanine, other purines (including
94 Stanley L. Miller and Antonio Lazcano

hypoxanthine, xanthine, and diaminopurine) may have been produced in

the primitive environment by variations of Oró’s adenine synthesis—the
result of reactions of aminoimidazole carbonitrile and aminoimidazole
carboxamide, as shown in scheme 3.5 (Sanchez, Ferris, and Orgel 1968).

Scheme 3.5.

A re-examination of the polymerization of concentrated solutions of

NH4CN (ammonium cyanide) has shown that, in addition to adenine,
guanine is produced both at 80 and at 20C (Levy, Miller, and Oró
1999). It is likely that most of the guanine obtained from the polymer-
ization of NH4CN is a product of diaminopurine, which reacts readily
with water, undergoing hydrolytic deamination to give guanine and isogua-
nine. The yields of guanine from this simple one-pot reaction synthesis of
the various purines are 10 to 40 times less than those of adenine. A pos-
sible reaction sequence for this synthesis is shown in figure 3.5. The mech-
anisms depicted are very likely oversimplified. Although adenine can be
considered a pentamer of HCN, in dilute aqueous solutions, its synthesis
involves the formation and rearrangement of other precursors such as 2-
cyanoadenine and 8-cyanoadenine (Voet and Schwartz 1983).
The abiotic synthesis of cytosine, one of the principal pyrimidine nu-
cleic acid bases, has also been described (Sanchez et al. 1966b; Ferris
et al. 1968). It is made in aqueous phase from cyanoacetylene (HC3N)
and cyanate (NCO). Cyanoacetylene is produced abundantly by the
action of a spark discharge on a mixture of methane and nitrogen, and
cyanate can come from cyanogen (CN) or from the decomposition of urea
(CO[NH2]2). However, the high concentrations of NCO ( 0.1 M)
required by this reaction are unrealistic, because cyanate would rapidly
hydrolyze to CO2 and NH3 in the primitive ocean.
Figure 3.5. Possible mechanisms for prebiotic synthesis of the purines
adenine, diaminopurine, and guanine from a mixture of hydrogen cyanide
(HCN) and ammonia (NH3). Guanine would also be formed from the
hydrolysis of diaminopurine (not shown).
96 Stanley L. Miller and Antonio Lazcano

More plausible mechanisms for the abiotic synthesis of pyrimidines

have also been suggested. Orotic acid, a biosynthetic precursor of the
pyrimidine uracil, has been identified (albeit in low yields) among the hy-
drolytic products of hydrogen cyanide polymers (Ferris et al. 1978). The
reaction of cyanoacetaldehyde (produced in high yields from the hy-
drolysis of cyanoacetylene) with urea produces no detectable levels of the
pyrimidine cytosine (Ferris et al. 1974). But when the same nonvolatile
compounds are concentrated in an evaporating pond (simulating primi-
tive evaporating lagoons on the early Earth), notably high amounts of
cytosine (50%) are formed (Robertson and Miller 1995). The results
suggest a facile mechanism for the accumulation of the pyrimidines cy-
tosine and uracil in the prebiotic environment, as outlined in scheme 3.6.

Scheme 3.6.

A related synthesis under evaporative conditions has been used to

react cyanoacetaldehyde with guanidine to produce diaminopyrimidine
in very high yields (Ferris et al. 1974; Robertson et al. 1996). Upon
hydrolysis, this compound produces uracil together with very low yields
of cytosine. Although it is unlikely that high amounts of diaminopy-
rimidine were present in the prebiotic environment, a wide variety of
other modified nucleic acid bases may have existed. The list includes
isoguanine, a hydrolytic product of diaminopurine (Levy et al. 1999),
and various modified purines. Such compounds may be the results of
side reactions when adenine and guanine react with a number of dif-
ferent amines under the concentrated conditions of a drying pond (Levy
and Miller 1999). Other modified purines are shown in figure 3.6.
Chemically modified pyrimidines, formed efficiently under plausible
prebiotic conditions, may also have been present in the early environ-
ment (Robertson and Miller 1995b). These include such compounds as
dihydrouridine (formed from NCO and -alanine), diaminopyrimi-
dine, thiocytosine (Robertson et al. 1996), and 5-substituted uracils,
whose functional side groups (figure 3.7) may have played an impor-
tant role in the early evolution of catalysis before the origin of proteins.
Figure 3.6. Prebiotic synthesis from adenine of various modified purines (N6-
methyladenine, 1-methyladenine, hypoxanthine, and 1-methylhypoxanthine).

Figure 3.7. Chemical reactions showing how various functional groups can
be attached to 5-substituted uracil, a modified pyrimidine. In the RNA
World, incorporation of amino acid analogs into polyribonucleotides may
have substantially enhanced the catalytic properties of ribozymes.
98 Stanley L. Miller and Antonio Lazcano

PREBIOTIC SYNTHESIS OF SUGARS

Ribose may have been one of the sugars employed by the earliest living
systems. Its importance was recognized with the discovery of the RNA
World, a stage of early biological evolution when living systems used RNA
both as a catalyst and as an informational macromolecule. And, together
with a great many other sugars produced by the condensation of formalde-
hyde under alkaline conditions (Butlerov 1861), ribose can be synthesized
in the laboratory under conditions relevant to the prebiotic Earth.
However, the Butlerov synthesis of sugars, also known as the for-
mose reaction, is very complex. It depends on the presence of a suit-
able inorganic catalyst, most commonly calcium hydroxide (Ca[OH]2)
or calcium carbonate (CaCO3). In the absence of such inorganic cata-
lysts, little or no sugar is produced. At 100°C, clay minerals such as
kaolin also catalyze the formation of small yields of simple sugars, in-
cluding ribose, from dilute (0.01 M) solutions of formaldehyde (Gabel
and Ponnamperuma 1967; Reid and Orgel 1967).
The Butlerov synthesis is autocatalytic—that is, catalyzed by its own
products. It proceeds in a series of steps from formaldehyde through
glycoaldehyde, glyceraldehyde, and dihydroxyacetone (four-carbon sug-
ars), to pentoses (five-carbon sugars), to hexoses (six-carbon sugars) such
as glucose and fructose. These six-carbon, simple sugars are important
constituents of biological carbohydrates. The detailed reaction sequence
is not yet understood, but may proceed as shown in scheme 3.7.

Scheme 3.7.

Two major problems attend the assumption that a Butlerov-style

reaction played a pivotal role in producing sugars on the primitive
Earth. First, the Butlerov synthesis is too efficient: It generates a great
variety of sugars, both straight-chain and branched (figure 3.8). Indeed,
Formation of the Building Blocks of Life 99

Figure 3.8. Gas chromatogram in which each of the peaks reflects the pres-
ence of a sugar formed by a Butlerov synthesis (a formose reaction). The
arrows point to peaks produced by the two forms of ribose formed in the
reaction: D-ribose, the form present in RNA, and L-ribose, its nonbiological
mirror image. Adapted from Decker et al. (1982).

more than 40 different sugars, including small amounts of ribose, have

been identified as products in a single reaction mixture (Decker et al.
1982). Second, the ribose formed is a racemic mixture, consisting of
D-ribose (the configuration found in the biological nucleic acids RNA
and DNA) and its mirror image L-ribose (a form not found in biolog-
ical systems). All sugars have fairly similar chemical properties; thus,
it is difficult to envision simple physicochemical mechanisms that could
(1) preferentially concentrate ribose from a complex mixture or (2) en-
hance the yield of the d-ribose relative to that of its biologically inac-
tive mirror image.
Albert Eschenmoser and his colleagues have proposed a promising
solution of these problems (Muller et al. 1990). They recognized that in
biological systems, sugar biosynthesis generates sugar-phosphate com-
pounds rather than free, unbound sugars. Under slightly basic conditions,
condensation of glycoaldehyde phosphate in the presence of formalde-
hyde leads to considerable selectivity in the synthesis of ribose-2,4-
diphosphate, a compound that exists either as a six-membered ring or a
100 Stanley L. Miller and Antonio Lazcano

TABLE 3.6 RATE OF DECOMPOSITION OF VARIOUS

SUGARS (100 C , 0.05 M PHOSPHATE )

Sugar Time1/2 (min)

Ribose 73
Ribose (0.05 M HCO3) 140
2-Deoxyribose 225
Ribose-5-phosphate 7
Ribose-2,4-diphosphate 31

pyranose diphosphorylated sugar (Muller et al. 1990). In the presence of

minerals, this reaction also takes place at neutral pH and low reactant
concentrations (Pitsch et al. 1995). Judging from the properties of pyra-
nosyl-RNA (discussed in chapter 4), a 2,4-linked nucleic acid analog
whose backbone includes the six-membered pyranose form of ribose-2,4-
diphosphate seems a particularly attractive prebiotic pathway.
The inherent instability of ribose poses yet another problem with
respect to its prebiotic availability. Under neutral conditions (pH 7),
the half-life for the decomposition of ribose is 73 minutes at 100C and
only 44 years at 0C (Larralde, Robertson, and Miller 1995). As sum-
marized in table 3.6, other pentose and hexose sugars are similarly un-
stable, as is ribose-2,4-diphosphate. Although many ways have been
suggested to stabilize sugars, attaching the sugar to a purine or
pyrimidine—that is, linking the sugar to a nucleoside—is the most bi-
ologically interesting. But the synthesis of such sugar–base nucleosides
is notoriously difficult to achieve under truly prebiotic conditions. Thus,
ribose-containing nucleosides are unlikely to have been components of
the earliest prebiotic informational macromolecules (Shapiro 1988). As
discussed in chapter 4, various workers have proposed possible sub-
stitutes for ribose as simpler precursors for the informational macro-
molecules known collectively as pre-RNAs.

HYDROTHERMAL VENTS AND THE ORIGIN OF LIFE

The discovery of hydrothermal vents at submarine ridge crests was a

major development in oceanography, engendering an appreciation of
their effect on the ionic balance of the world’s oceans (Corliss et al.
1979). Large amounts of ocean water now pass through such vents—
Formation of the Building Blocks of Life 101

in fact, a volume equivalent to the world’s entire ocean system circulates

through them every ten or so million years (Edmond et al. 1982).
Moreover, such vents have a long history. Hydrothermal vents and the
accompanying processes of hydrothermal oceanic circulation almost
certainly date from Earth’s beginnings, when the flow was even greater
because heat flow from the planet’s interior was especially high (see
chapter 2).
Soon after the discovery of deep-sea vents, Corliss and his colleagues
(1981) proposed a detailed hypothesis for the origin of life in this
abyssal hydrothermal setting. They suggested that amino acids and other
organic compounds were produced by chemical reactions occurring
during passage of waters through the vent system, where the temper-
ature gradient ranged from 350C (in the vent waters) to 2C (in the
surrounding ocean). Such conditions favor polymerization and permit
the resulting polymers to self-organize, leading to the development of
living systems.
Given the geological plausibility of a hot early Earth, submarine hy-
drothermal springs appear to be an ideal setting for the origin of life.
We know that more than a hundred such vents exist today along active
tectonic oceanic ridge crests. And, in at least some of these, huge
amounts of catalytic clays and minerals interact with an aqueous
reducing environment rich in H2, H2S, CO, CO2 (and possibly HCN,
CH4, and NH3)—simple compounds known to react under prebiotic
conditions to form amino acids, purines, pyrimidines, and other bio-
chemicals. Moreover, until recently, the possibility that life originated
in high-temperature environments (Pace 1991), including those found
at deep-sea vents, appeared to be supported by molecular phylogenetic
trees, whose earliest diverging branches are occupied by anaerobic
microbial hyperthermophiles—microorganisms that grow optimally at
and above 90C (Stetter 1994). However, current studies suggest that
hyperthermophily is actually a secondary adaptation that evolved early
in Earth’s history but well after the origin of life. Galtier, Tourasse, and
Gouy (1999), using a newly developed method for the statistical analy-
sis of the G  C (guanine plus cytosine) content of the DNA genes that
code for rRNA (ribosomal RNA)—for biological systems, a reliable in-
dicator of environmental temperature—have concluded that the Last
Common Ancestor (LCA) of extant life (the evolutionary rootstock of
all present-day organisms) was not a hyperthermophile. Rather, the
LCA was part of an ancestral population of mesophiles (organisms in-
habiting settings with moderate temperatures).
102 Stanley L. Miller and Antonio Lazcano

That life may have originated under thermophilic conditions is not

a new idea. It was first proposed by Harvey (1924), who argued that
the earliest life forms were heterotrophic thermophiles that originated
in hot springs like those at Yellowstone National Park (Wyoming, U. S.).
As Harvey emphasized, chemical reactions would have proceeded faster
in a high-temperature setting, and primitive enzymes would have been
less efficient than their modern counterparts. However, high tem-
peratures are also destructive to organic compounds. Among other
deleterious effects, the consequent loss of biochemical structure by
decomposition diminishes the stability of genetic material such as
RNA. As noted earlier, ribose and other sugars are notably thermola-
bile (Larralde et al. 1995). In a high-temperature environment, could
ribose survive long enough to participate in the prebiotic synthesis of
the macromolecules required by the RNA World?
The stability of ribose and other sugars is a serious problem (table
3.6), but that of pyrimidines, purines, and some kinds of amino acids
present difficulties as well. At 100C, the half-life for deamination of
the pyrimidine cytosine is only 21 days, and for the purine adenine,
204 days (Shapiro 1995). Amino acids present a mixed case. Some, like
alanine, are thermally quite stable; but others, like serine, are not. At
100C, alanine has a decarboxylation half-life of 19,000 years
whereas serine’s decarboxylation half-life is 320 days (Vallentyne 1964).
Taken together, these observations demonstrate that neither the growth
of organisms nor the origin of life is at all likely at 250 or 350C (White
1984; Miller and Lazcano 1995).
In summary, it is difficult to accept that organic compounds were
synthesized at 350C in submarine vents. Rather, we have abundant data
indicating that such conditions favor decomposition of many com-
pounds in time spans ranging from seconds to hours. Thus, the sug-
gestion that life originated in such a setting (Corliss et al. 1981) is highly
improbable. This is not to imply that deep-sea hydrothermal springs
were negligible factors in life’s beginnings. If the mineral assemblages at
such vents were sufficiently reducing, the vents could have been a source
of CH4, which, diffused into the atmosphere, may have served as a car-
bon source for organic syntheses. And such hydrothermal vents would
also have played a role in regulating the ionic composition of the ocean,
as they do today. Finally, because submarine vent systems could destroy
organic compounds, their presence would have fixed an upper limit on
the concentration of organics in the primitive ocean.
Formation of the Building Blocks of Life 103

EXTRATERRESTRIAL ORGANIC
COMPOUNDS AND PREBIOTIC EVOLUTION

The existence of extraterrestrial organic compounds has been recog-

nized since 1834, when Berzelius analyzed constituents of the Aläis
carbonaceous meteorite (now classed as a C1 carbonaceous chondrite),
a conclusion confirmed a few years later by Wöhler’s studies of the
Kaba meteorite (a C2 carbonaceous chondrite). Today, the presence of
a complex array of extraterrestrial organic compounds in meteorites,
comets, interplanetary dust, and interstellar clouds is firmly established.
Some workers have proposed that extraterrestrial material represents
a promising source of the prebiotic organic compounds necessary for
the origin of life (Oró 1961; Anders 1989; Chyba 1990; Chyba and
Sagan 1992). Positing an extraterrestrial origin for the organic com-
ponents of Earth’s prebiotic soup has a singular appeal: It accounts for
the low yields and limited variety of organic compounds synthesized
in the CO2-rich models of primitive atmospheres favored by atmos-
pheric scientists (Kasting 1993).
But the source of organic compounds in the primordial broth is not
the question. Instead, we must ask what percentage came from each of
several potential sources. Numerous types of interstellar molecules have
been detected (including formaldehyde, hydrogen cyanide, acetaldehyde,
cyanoacetylene, and other prebiotic compounds), and their total amount
in any particular interstellar cloud is high. However, their concentra-
tions are very low (a few molecules per cubic meter), and there are no
plausible mechanisms to concentrate and deliver them to Earth. Thus,
interstellar molecules could have played, at most, a minor role in the
origin of life.
The major sources of exogenous organic compounds appear to be
comets and interplanetary dust particles, asteroids and carbonaceous
meteorites being minor contributors. Asteroids would have impacted
the early Earth frequently, especially during the planet’s earliest several
hundred million years; but the amount of organic material brought in
would have been rather small, even if such asteroids were similar in
composition to the organic-rich Murchison meteorite. Murchison con-
tains a low percentage of organic carbon, mostly in the form of an in-
soluble carbonaceous polymer, as well as about 100 ppm of amino
acids, a minuscule amount (0.10 g/kg of meteorite, or 2.0 102
moles of amino acids, assuming a void volume for the meteorite of
104 Stanley L. Miller and Antonio Lazcano

10% and a density of approximately 2.0). Consider, for example, the

asteroid, some 10 km across, whose crash was instrumental in the ex-
tinction of the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous Period (65 mil-
lion years ago). The amino acids carried in on this huge body were
present in such minute amounts that they were detectable in the rock
record only by the most sensitive of modern analytical techniques (Zhao
and Bada 1989). The contribution of organic compounds carried in on
carbon-rich meteorites would have been equally minor. And their con-
tribution to the primordial soup could never be more than minor, even
if a significant proportion of meteoritic amino acids, pyrimidines, and
purines survived the high temperatures associated with frictional heat-
ing during atmospheric entry (Glavin and Bada 1999).
Among the various sources of prebiotic exogenous organic com-
pounds suggested, comets are the most promising (Oró and Lazcano
1997), a proposal first made by John Oró (1961). Cometary nuclei con-
tain about 80% H2O, 1% HCN, and 1% H2CO, as well as significant
amounts of CO2 and CO. Thus, if we assume that a typical cometary
nucleus has a density of 1 g cm3, a comet 1 km across would con-
tain 2 1011 moles of HCN, an amount equivalent to about
40 nmoles cm2 distributed over Earth’s surface. This is a huge amount,
comparable to the yearly production of HCN by electric discharge in
a CH4-rich reducing atmosphere. Such an abundance would certainly
have played a major role in organic syntheses if the early Earth lacked
a reducing atmosphere. (This calculation assumes a complete survival
of HCN on impact. But we have little understanding of what happens
during the impact of such an object, much of which would be heated
to temperatures above 300C. This is high enough to decompose HCN
and any other organic compounds brought in. However, such decom-
position could yield highly reactive chemical species that might serve
as precursors in the abiotic synthesis of prebiotic organic monomers.)
Interplanetary dust particles also carry in organics. Today, the annual
in-fall rate of such particles is 40 106 kg (Love and Brownlee 1993).
On primitive Earth, when the planet was forming, this amount may
have been 100 to 1000 times greater. Unfortunately, the organic com-
position of such cosmic dust is poorly known. To date, the only kinds
of organic molecules identified are a few types of polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbons (Gibson 1992; Clemett et al. 1993). But much of the dust
may consist of tholins—organic polymers of a type produced by elec-
tric discharge, ionizing radiation, and ultraviolet light in laboratory ex-
periments. Although tholins are generally quite refractive, they release
Formation of the Building Blocks of Life 105

some amino acids (a low percentage) upon acid hydrolysis. More promis-
ingly, tholins may be a source of prebiotic chemical precursor molecules
such as hydrogen cyanide, cyanoacetylene, and various aldehydes. On
entry into Earth’s primitive atmosphere, the tholin-carrying dust parti-
cles would be heated, pyrolyzing the organic matter. Then the resulting
prebiotic compounds, including HCN, could have participated in a se-
quence of prebiotic reactions (Mukhin et al. 1989; Chyba et al. 1990).
The true source of organics on the primitive Earth remains an open
question. But even if we could prove that comets and meteorites de-
livered them, we could not confirm the concept of panspermia. Instead,
we could say with certainty that the primitive terrestrial environment
was partly shaped by the same intense bombardment that affected the
Moon, Mars, and other bodies of the Solar System.

AN AUTOTROPHIC ORIGIN OF LIFE ?

Alternative theories explaining the origin of life coexist today. Some

argue for an RNA World (Gilbert 1986) or a Thioester World (De Duve
1991), others maintain that life originated at submarine hydrothermal
vents (Corliss et al. 1981), and still others hypothesize an extraterres-
trial origin for the requisite organic compounds (Oró 1961). Underlying
all these notions is the shared assumption that nonbiological organic
synthesis was a necessary precursor to the emergence of living systems.
Moreover, each is consistent with a heterotrophic origin of life (table
3.7). But a competing idea—an autotrophic origin of life—has propo-
nents, as well. According to this theory, the earliest forms of life were
plant-like autotrophs (they used CO2 as a source of carbon). These

TABLE 3.7 CURRENT HYPOTHESES ON THE ORIGIN

OF LIFE ( EXCLUDING PANSPERMIA )

1. Abiotic Synthesis and Heterotrophic Origin

Oparin (1936) Primitive soup and primordial fermentation

Corliss et al. (1981) Submarine hot spring thermophilic heterotroph
Gilbert (1986) RNA World
De Duve (1991) Thioester World
Kauffman (1993) Self-organization and complexity theory

2. Primordial CO2 Fixation and Autotrophic Origin

Wächterhäuser (1988) Pyrite-based chemolithotrophic metabolic

networks
106 Stanley L. Miller and Antonio Lazcano

emergent chemical systems synthesized their own organic compounds

instead of incorporating ready-made environmental organics. The
most articulate proponent of the autotrophic hypothesis is Günter
Wächtershäuser (1988, 1992), who has argued that life began with the
appearance of an autocatalytic, two-dimensional, chemolithotrophic
(chemically powered) metabolic system based on the formation of the
highly insoluble mineral pyrite (FeS2).
Formation of pyrite by the reaction FeS  H2S S FeS2  H2 is very
favorable. This reaction is irreversible and highly exergonic (energy-
liberating), producing a standard free-energy change ( G) of 9.23 kcal
mol1 that corresponds to a reduction in chemical potential (E) of the
reactants of 620 mV. Thus, the FeS/H2S combination is a strong
reducing agent; even under mild conditions, it should serve as an
efficient source of electrons for the reduction (hydrogenation) of organic
compounds. The scenario proposed by Wächtershäuser (1988, 1992)
fits well with the environmental conditions found at the deep-sea hy-
drothermal vents, where H2S, CO2, and CO can be quite abundant.
Interestingly, however, the FeS/H2S system does not reduce CO2 to
amino acids, purines, or pyrimidines, although the formal chemistry of
the reaction shows that the available free energy is more than adequate
(Keefe et al. 1995). But pyrite formation can produce molecular hydro-
gen (H2) and promote the reduction of nitrate to ammonia (NO3 S
NH3), acetylene to ethylene (C2H2 S C2H4), and thioacetic acid to
acetic acid (C2H4OS S C2H4O2), as summarized by Maden (1995).
Recent experiments have shown that the activation of amino acids with
CO and an iron-nickel sulfide mineral ([Fe,Ni]S) can lead to formation
of peptide bonds like those in proteins (Huber and Wächtershäuser
1998). (In these experiments, the required reactions take place in an
aqueous environment to which the powdered sulfide mineral has been
added. Thus, the reacting molecules do not form a dense monolayer
bound ionically to the mineral. In contrast, the reactions discussed by
Maden take place on the surfaces of pyrite grains.)
None of the FeS/H2S system experiments shows that the postulated
surface-bound metabolism gives rise to enzymes or nucleic acids. In fact,
the results to date do not necessarily point to an autotrophic origin of
life; rather, they are consistent with a more general, modified model of
the primitive broth in which pyrite formation is an important source
of electrons for the reduction of organic compounds. But possibilities
remain. Under certain geological conditions (not yet described), the
FeS/H2S combination might be capable of reducing not only CO but
also CO2 (released from molten magma in deep-sea vents), thereby
Formation of the Building Blocks of Life 107

producing biochemically relevant monomers (Orgel 1988). Similarly,

peptide polymers might be synthesized in an iron-nickel sulfide system
at submarine fumaroles (Huber and Wächtershäuser 1998) if amino
acids were formed earlier by Strecker-type syntheses near the ocean sur-
face—although such a scenario would require transport of the partic-
ipating amino acids from their site of formation to the deep-sea vents
(Rode 1999). However, if the compounds synthesized by such processes
do not remain bound to the pyritic surface, but drift away into the sur-
rounding oceanic waters, they would cease to be a two-dimensional,
chemically powered autotrophic organism. Instead, they would become
additional components of the prebiotic soup. In sum, the experimen-
tal results achieved so far with the FeS/H2S combination appear to be
fully consistent with a heterotrophic origin of life.

HAVE TOO MANY COOKS SPOILED THE SOUP ?

In addition to the small monomeric compounds discussed here, other

kinds of organic compounds have been synthesized under primitive Earth
conditions. These include dicarboxylic and tricarboxylic acids, fatty acids,
and fatty alcohols. But for a variety of biochemical monomers, no syn-
theses under plausible prebiotic conditions have been demonstrated.
Among these are arginine, lysine, histidine, thiamine, folic acid, lipoic
acid, biotin, and pyridoxal. It is possible that some of these compounds
were not, in fact, synthesized on the prebiotic Earth, and that their pres-
ence in living systems is a result of early intracellular metabolic evolution.
Given adequate expertise and the right experimental conditions, it
is theoretically possible to synthesize almost any organic molecule. So
the nonbiological synthesis of a wide array of the monomeric compo-
nents of modern cells under laboratory conditions does not mean that
these components were essential for the origin of life; nor does it mean
that they were necessarily present in the prebiotic environment. The
primordial broth may have been a chemical wonderland, but it could
not have included all the compounds and molecular structures found
in the simplest of present-day microbes.
The fundamental tenet informing the heterotrophic theory of life’s
origin is that maintenance and reproduction of the first living systems
depended on prebiotically synthesized organic molecules. As summa-
rized here, discussions about how the primitive broth was formed are
both lively and numerous. Have too many cooks spoiled the soup?
Certainly not. Indeed, it is very unlikely that any single mechanism can
account for the wide range of organic compounds that must have been
108 Stanley L. Miller and Antonio Lazcano

Figure 3.9. Unlike chemical reactions that take place under highly selective
conditions, a robust organic synthesis—like that of monomers formed under
possible prebiotic conditions—produces appreciable yields over a wide range
of environmental settings.

present in the primitive environment. Rather, the prebiotic soup was

almost certainly formed by contributions from endogenous and ex-
ogenous sources—from “homegrown” syntheses in a reducing atmos-
phere and on metal sulfides at deep-sea vents, as well as from comets,
meteorites, and interplanetary dust. This eclectic view does not beg the
issue of the relative significance of the different contributors of organic
compounds: It simply recognizes the wide variety of potential sources
of the raw materials required for the emergence of life.
The existence of diverse nonbiological mechanisms by which bio-
chemically relevant monomers can be synthesized under plausibly
prebiotic conditions is now established. Of course, not all prebiotic path-
ways are equally efficient, but the wide range of experimental conditions
under which organic compounds can be synthesized demonstrates that
prebiotic syntheses of the building blocks of life are robust. The abiotic
reactions producing such compounds span a broad range of settings; they
are not limited to a narrow spectrum of highly selective reaction con-
ditions (figure 3.9). Our ideas on the prebiotic formation of organic
compounds are largely based on experiments in model systems. The ro-
bustness of this approach is supported by the fact that carbonaceous
meteorites contain most of the same kinds of compounds that are pro-
duced in the laboratory. Such comparisons indicate that it is certainly
Formation of the Building Blocks of Life 109

plausible that similar nonbiological organic syntheses took place on the

primitive Earth. Yet for all the uncertainties surrounding the emergence
of life, the formation of a primordial organic soup is one of the most
firmly established events in Earth’s history.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

For grant support, we thank the NASA Specialized Center of Research

and Training (S. L. M.) and Proyecto UNAM-DGAPA PAPIIT-IN213598
(A. L.).

REFERENCES

Anders, E. 1989. Pre-biotic organic matter from comets and asteroids. Nature
342:255–57.
Baudish, O. 1913. Über nitrat- und nitritatassimilation. Zeitschrift für
Angewandte Chemie 26:612–13.
Chyba, C. F. 1990. Impact delivery and erosion of planetary oceans in the early
inner Solar System. Nature 343:129–33.
Chyba, C. F., and C. Sagan. 1992. Endogenous production, exogenous delivery,
and impact-shock synthesis of organic compounds: An inventory for the ori-
gin of life. Nature 355:125–32.
Chyba, C. F., P. J. Thomas, L. Brookshaw, and C. Sagan. 1990. Cometary deliv-
ery of organic molecules to the early Earth. Science 249:366–73.
Clemett, S. J., C. R. Maechling, R. N. Zare, P. D. Swan, and R. M. Walker. 1993.
Identification of complex aromatic molecules in individual interplanetary
dust particles. Science 262:721–25.
Corliss, J. B., J. Dymond, L. I. Gordon, J. M. Edmond, R. P. von Herzen, R. D.
Ballard, K. Green, D. Williams, A. Bainbridge, K. Crane, and T. H. van Andel.
1979. Submarine thermal springs on the Galapagos Rift. Science 203:1073–83.
Corliss, J. B., J. A. Baross, and S. E. Hoffman. 1981. An hypothesis concerning
the relationship between submarine hot springs and the origin of life on
Earth. Oceanologica Acta 4(Suppl.): 59–69.
Decker, P., H. Schweer, and R. Pohlmann. 1982. Identification of formose sug-
ars, presumable prebiotic metabolites, using capillary gas chromatogra-
phy/gas chromatography-mass spectrometry of n-butoxime trifluoroacetates
on OV-225. Journal of Chromatography 225:281–91.
De Duve, C. 1991. Blueprint for a cell: The nature and origin of life.
Burlington, N. C.: Neil Patterson.
Edmond, J. M., K. L. Von Damn, R. E. McDuff, and C. I. Measures. 1982.
Chemistry of hot springs on the east Pacific Rise and their effluent dispersal.
Nature 297:187–91.
Ferris, J. P., and L. E. Orgel. 1966. An unusual photochemical rearrangement in
the synthesis of adenine from hydrogen cyanide. Journal of the American
Chemical Society 88:1074.
110 Stanley L. Miller and Antonio Lazcano

Ferris, J. P., R. P. Sanchez, and L. E. Orgel. 1968. Studies in prebiotic synthesis.

III. Synthesis of pyrimidines from cyanoacetylene and cyanate. Journal of
Molecular Biology 33:693–704.
Ferris, J. P., O. S. Zamek, A. M. Altbuch, and H. Freiman. 1974. Chemical evo-
lution XVIII. Synthesis of pyrimidines from guanidine and cyanoacetalde-
hyde. Journal of Molecular Evolution 3:301–9.
Ferris, J. P., P. D. Joshi, E. H. Edelson, and J. G. Lawless. 1978. HCN: A plau-
sible source of purines, pyrimidines, and amino acids on the primitive Earth.
Journal of Molecular Evolution 11:293–311.
Gabel, N. W., and C. Ponnamperuma. 1967. Model for the origin of monosac-
charides. Nature 216:453–55.
Galtier, N., N. Tourasse, and M. Gouy. 1999. A nonhyperthermophilic com-
mon ancestor to extant life forms. Science 283:220–21.
Gibson, E. K., Jr. 1992. Volatiles in interplanetary dust particles: A review.
Journal of Geophysical Research 97:3865–75.
Gilbert, W. 1986. The RNA world. Nature 319:618.
Glavin, D. P., and J. L. Bada. 1999. The sublimation and survival of amino acids
and nucleobases in the Murchison meteorite during a simulated atmospheric
entry heating event. Abstracts of the 12th International Conference on the
Origin of Life, July 11–16, 1999, International Society for the Study of the
Origin of Life San Diego, California, p. 108.
Glocker, G., and S. C. Lind. 1939. The electrochemistry of gases and other
dielectrics. New York: Wiley.
Harvey, R. B. 1924. Enzymes of thermal algae. Science 60:481–82.
Huber, C., and G. Wächtershäuser. 1998. Peptides by activation of amino acids
with CO on (Ni, Fe)S surfaces and implications for the origin of life. Science
281:670–72.
Kamminga, H. 1991. The origin of life on Earth: Theory, history, and method.
Uroboros 1:95–110.
Kasting, J. F. 1993. Earth’s early atmosphere. Science 259:920–26.
Kauffman, S. 1993. The origins of order: Self-organization and selection in evo-
lution. New York: Oxford University Press.
Keefe, A. D., S. L. Miller, G. McDonald, and J. L. Bada. 1995. Investigation of
the prebiotic synthesis of amino acids and RNA bases from CO2 using
FeS/H2S as a reducing agent. Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences USA 92:11904–6.
Larralde, R., M. P. Robertson, and S. L. Miller. 1995. Rates of decomposition
of ribose and other sugars: Implications for chemical evolution. Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences USA 92:8158–60.
Lazcano, A. 1995. A. I. Oparin: The man and his theory. In Evolutionary
biochemistry and related areas of physicochemical biology, ed. B. F.
Plogazov, B. I. Kurganov, M. S. Kritsky, and K. L. Gladilin, 49–56. Moscow:
A. N. Bach Institute of Biochemistry and ANKO Press.
Lazcano, A., and S. L. Miller. 1996. The origin and early evolution of life:
Prebiotic chemistry, the pre-RNA world, and time. Cell 85:793–98.
Leicester, H. M. 1974. Development of biochemical concepts from ancient to
modern times. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Formation of the Building Blocks of Life 111

Letham, D. S., and P. R. Stewart. 1977. RNA in retrospect. In The Ribonucleic

Acids, ed. D. S. Letham and P. R. Stewart, 1–8. New York: Springer.
Levy, M., and S. L. Miller. 1999. The prebiotic synthesis of modified purines
and their potential role in the RNA world. Journal of Molecular Evolution
48:631–37.
Levy, M., S. L. Miller, and J. Oró. 1999. Production of guanine from NH4CN
polymerizations. Journal of Molecular Evolution 49:165–68.
Levy, M., S. L. Miller, K. Brinton, and J. L. Bada. 2000. Prebiotic synthesis of
adenine and amino acids under Europa-like conditions. Icarus 145:609–13.
Love, S. G., and D. E. Brownlee. 1993. A direct measurement of the terrestrial
accretion rate of cosmic dust. Science 262:550–53.
Maden, B. E. H. 1995. No soup for starters? Autotrophy and origins of metab-
olism. Trends in Biochemical Sciences 20:337–41.
Miller, S. L. 1953. A production of amino acids under possible primitive Earth
conditions. Science 117:528.
——. 1955. Production of some organic compounds under possible primitive
Earth conditions. Journal of the American Chemical Society 77:2351–61.
——. 1998. The endogenous synthesis of organic compounds. In The molecu-
lar origins of life: Assembling pieces of the puzzle, ed. A. Brack, 59–85.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Miller, S. L., and A. Lazcano. 1995. The origin of life—Did it occur at high
temperatures? Journal of Molecular Evolution 41:689–92.
Mukhin, L. M., M. V. Gerasimov, and E. N. Safonova. 1989. Origin of precur-
sors of organic molecules during evaporation of meteorites and mafic ter-
restrial rocks. Nature 340:46–48.
Muller, D., S. Pitsch, A. Kittaka, E. Wagner, C. E. Wintner, and A. Eschenmoser.
1990. Chemie von alpha-Aminonitrilen (135). Helvetica Chimica Acta
73:1410–68.
Oparin, A. I. 1924. Proiskhozhedenie Zhizni (Moskva: Moskovskii Rabochii).
Reprinted and translated by J. D. Bernal. 1967. The origin of life, 199–234.
London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
Oparin, A. I. 1938. The origin of life. New York: Macmillan.
Orgel, L. E. 1998. The origin of life—A review of facts and speculations.
Trends in Biochemical Science 23:491–95.
Oró, J. 1960. Synthesis of adenine from ammonium cyanide. Biochemical and
Biophysical Research Communications 2:407–12.
——. 1961. Comets and the formation of biochemical compounds on the prim-
itive Earth. Nature 190:442–43.
Oró, J., and A. P. Kimball. 1961. Synthesis of purines under primitive Earth
conditions. I. Adenine from hydrogen cyanide. Archives of Biochemistry
and Biophysics 94:221–27.
Oró, J., and A. Lazcano. 1997. Comets and the origin and evolution of life. In
Comets and the origin and evolution of life, ed. P. J. Thomas, C. F. Chyba,
and C. P. McKay, 3–27. New York: Springer.
Pace, N. R. 1991. Origin of life—Facing up to the physical setting. Cell 65:531–33.
Peltzer, E. T., J. L. Bada, G. Schlesinger, and S. L. Miller. 1984. The chemical
conditions on the parent body of the Murchison meteorite: Some conclusions
112 Stanley L. Miller and Antonio Lazcano

based on amino-, hydroxy-, and dicarboxylic acids. Advances in Space

Research 4:69–74.
Pitsch, S., R. Krishnamurthy, M. Bolli, S. Wendeborn, A. Holzner, M. Minton,
C. Leseur, I. Schlönvogt, B. Jaun, and A. Eschenmoser. 1995. Pyranosyl-
RNA (pRNA): Base-pairing selectivity and potential to replicate. Helvetica
Chimica Acta 78:1621–35.
Reid, C., and L. E. Orgel. 1967. Synthesis of sugar in potentially prebiotic con-
ditions. Nature 216:455.
Robertson, M. P., and S. L. Miller. 1995a. An efficient prebiotic synthesis of
cytosine and uracil. Nature 375:772–74.
——. 1995b. Prebiotic synthesis of 5-substituted uracils: A bridge between the
RNA world and the DNA-protein world. Science 268: 702–5.
Robertson, M. P., M. Levy, and S. L. Miller. 1996. Prebiotic synthesis of
diaminopyrimidine and thiocytosine. Journal of Molecular Evolution
43:543–50.
Rode, B. M. 1999. Peptides and the origin of life. Peptides 20:773–86.
Sanchez, R. A., J. P. Ferris, and L. E. Orgel. 1966a. Conditions for purine syn-
thesis: Did prebiotic synthesis occur at low temperatures? Science
153:72–73.
——. 1966b. Cyanoacetylene in prebiotic synthesis. Science 154:784–85.
——. 1967. Studies in prebiotic synthesis. II. Synthesis of purine precursors and
amino acids from aqueous hydrogen cyanide. Journal of Molecular
Biology 30:223–53.
——. 1968. Studies in prebiotic synthesis. IV. The conversion of 4-aminoimi-
dazole-5-carbonitrile derivatives to purines. Journal of Molecular
Evolution 38:121–28.
Shapiro, R. 1988. Prebiotic ribose synthesis: A critical analysis. Origins of Life
and Evolution of the Biosphere 18:71–85.
——. 1995. The prebiotic role of adenine: A critical analysis. Origins of Life
and Evolution of the Biosphere 25:83–98.
Stetter, K. O. 1994. The lesson of archaebacteria. In Early life on Earth: Nobel
Symposium No. 84, ed. S. Bengtson, 114–22. New York: Columbia
University Press.
Urey, H. C. 1952. On the early chemical history of the Earth and the origin of
life. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 38:351–63.
Vallentyne, J. R. 1963. Biogeochemistry of organic matter. II: Thermal reaction
kinetics and transformation products of amino compounds. Geochimica
Cosmochimica Acta 28:157–88.
Voet, A. B., and A. W. Schwartz. 1983. Prebiotic adenine synthesis from HCN: Evi-
dence for a newly discovered major pathway. Bioorganic Chemistry 12:8–17.
Wächtershäuser, G. 1988. Before enzymes and templates: Theory of surface
metabolism. Microbiological Reviews 52:452–84.
——. 1992. Groundworks for an evolutionary biochemistry: The iron-sulphur
world. Progress in Biophysical Molecular Biology 58:85–201.
Zhao, M., and J. L. Bada. 1989. Extraterrestrial amino acids in Cretaceous/
Tertiary boundary sediments at Stevns Klint, Denmark. Nature 339:463–65.
chapter 4

From Building Blocks to

the Polymers of Life
ja m e s p. f e r r i s

the biopolymers in the first life

Nucleic acids and proteins play a central role in life on Earth today.
These polymeric biochemicals, composed, respectively, of nucleotides
(figure 4.1a) and amino acids (figure 4.2a), provide the catalysis, the
genetics, and some of the structure of all living systems. The genetic in-
formation in the nucleic acid DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) is transcribed
to the nucleic acid RNA (ribonucleic acid; figure 4.1b), and this infor-
mation is then translated from RNA to protein. Most contemporary liv-
ing systems need other polymers as well. Today, for example, the up-
to-date organism uses polymers of sugar—carbohydrates—to store
energy and build (plant) cell walls. It is unlikely that the first forms of
life needed such polymers. But it is fairly certain that polymeric nu-
cleotides and polymers of amino acids—or biochemicals similar to
them—have been present in living systems since life’s emergence.
How many different kinds of biopolymers were assembled in the first
forms of life? It would be easier to agree on these necessary components
if scientists could agree on what properties the first life forms had, or
even on what “life” is (Luisi 1998). Three definitions illustrate the vary-
ing views. Version 1 is a minimalist definition, according to which life
is a self-sufficient system maintained by replication and subject to change
by mutation. Thus, the simplest form of life is an assemblage of nucleic
acids sustained by an external source of nutrients (to provide energy),
its integrity preserved by the binding of biopolymers to a mineral surface.
Version 2, a more complex definition, posits a semipermeable barrier (a

113
114 James P. Ferris

Figure 4.1. The structure of RNA. (a) The monomeric unit (a nucleotide) of
RNA, showing the four nitrogenous bases (the purines, adenine and guanine;
and the pyrimidines, cytosine and uracil) that can be bound into RNA nu-
cleotides. (b) A short piece of an RNA molecule. pACGU denotes an RNA
that contains the bases adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G), and uracil (U).

membrane) to maintain the integrity of a primitive living system.

Version 3 is more complex yet. It requires the presence of the molecu-
lar machinery (proteins) to metabolize ingested nutrients. In this case,
the monomers essential to the processes of living are the products of
metabolism; they are not provided by some external source.
Under these definitions, which kinds of biopolymers were required
to form the first life? Version 1 requires only RNA (figure 4.1b) or its
From Building Blocks to the Polymers of Life 115

Figure 4.2. The structures of (a) an amino acid, (b) two amino acids linked
by a peptide bond, and (c) a polypeptide consisting of the amino acids
leucine and lysine.

equivalent, since RNA both stores genetic information and catalyzes

reactions (as in ribozymes, a particular type of RNA). Genetic mate-
rial, such as RNA or something similar, would have been essential be-
cause genetic information assures the continued existence of life and
directs the formation of proteins. Version 2 requires only RNA and a
semipermeable barrier (and, perhaps, polypeptide catalysts to manu-
facture the enclosing barrier). If the membrane enclosing the life forms
was composed of lipids (as in present-day microbes), it may have
required embedded proteins to control the migration of nutrients.
Version 3 requires proteins to catalyze metabolism—since it is unlikely
that primitive RNA or early ribozymes had the catalytic capability to
carry out all of the necessary chemical transformations—as well as the
complex machinery needed to make other biochemicals.
Here, we will focus on Version 2, the “middle of the road” view,
offering an origin-of-life scenario that requires prebiotic synthesis of
116 James P. Ferris

Figure 4.3. Formation and hydrolysis of polymer-forming chemical bonds in

water. (a) Bonds linking nucleotides, as in RNA. (b) Bonds linking amino
acids (peptide bonds), as in proteins. In both examples, the direct formation
of bonds combining two monomers into a dimer—dinucleotides in (a),
dipeptides in (b)—is not energetically favored in water; however, hydrolytic
breakdown of such bonds is energetically favored.

RNA and at least some catalytic amino acid polymers. But in adopting
this approach, we are forced to make a major assumption: namely, that
RNA and protein (or chemicals very similar to each) were components
of the first living systems. In truth, compounds quite different from
RNA and proteins—for example, chemical evolutionary precursors of
RNA and proteins—could have been used. But because we have few
specific examples of plausible pre-RNA or pre-protein molecules, we
will concentrate on nucleic acids and proteins.
RNA and proteins are polymers made from repeating monomeric
subunits. In the RNA polymer (figure 4.1), the principal monomer units
are derivatives of ribose phosphate, and each of these subunits is bound
to one of four heterocyclic, nitrogenous bases: the two purines, ade-
nine (A) and guanine (G), and the two pyrimidines, uracil (U) and cy-
tosine (C). Proteins are polymers of amino acids (figure 4.2c) linked by
peptide bonds (figure 4.2b). In contemporary life, proteins contain 20
different kinds of amino acids, each having a different side chain, or
R group (shown in figure 4.2a).

General Considerations of Polymer Synthesis

Formally, the synthesis of nucleotides and amino acid polymers should

be simple: Two monomers can be linked by eliminating a hydrogen atom
(H) from one monomer and a hydroxyl group (–OH) from another,
then releasing the resulting water molecule (HOH). But the formation
of polynucleotides (such as RNA) or amino acid polymers (proteins)
from their monomer components is not energetically favored (figure 4.3).
In proteins, the polymer-forming peptide bond is thermodynamically
From Building Blocks to the Polymers of Life 117

Figure 4.4. The structure of an activated nucleotide

(primed for ready chemical reaction); the activating
group is an imidazole group (the nitrogen-containing
five-membered ring compound attached to phosphorus).

unstable in water, so in aqueous solution, energy is required to link two

amino acids. Indeed, 3.8 kcal/mol is released upon hydrolysis (break-
down in water) of a peptide bond, while 5.8 kcal/mol is released upon
hydrolytic breakdown of a simple amide bond of an amino acid (Dobry
and Sturtevandt 1952). And in the nucleotide 5-AMP, hydrolysis of the
phosphate ester bond (the kind present in all nucleic acids) releases 2.2
kcal/mol. So, on the prebiotic Earth, energy input must have been nec-
essary to make polymers of nucleotides and amino acids.
Initial studies using heat to link monomeric units, some carried out
in the absence of water, have been marginally successful. However,
water was ubiquitous on the primitive Earth, so the biologically im-
portant polymers were probably formed in the presence of water. It is
imperative, then, to prepare polymers in aqueous solution. One way to
do that is to attach activating groups to the reacting monomers; such
chemical groups promote linkages between monomers, priming them
for reaction (figure 4.4). Another way is to use chemical condensing
agents that provide the energy needed for bond formation.

Life on the Rocks

Even when activated monomers are used, it is difficult to form long

polymers in water. Such polymers are formed in a stepwise process;
and unless some additional impetus promotes polymer formation, long
Figure 4.5. Construction of the Price Tower in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. The prebiotic for-
mation of a polymer is analogous to constructing a tall building. Each floor must be
built before the floor above it can be constructed, and many building materials are
needed to complete the intermediate floors before adding the top floor. Similarly, the
prebiotic formation of a long polymer requires the earlier formation of many copies of
its constituent polymeric units. And such synthesis requires many building blocks
(monomers) to build up the intermediate polymers before the final long polymeric chain can
be made. The photos shown were prepared by Garrett Hamlin from photographs in The
Story of the Tower by Frank Lloyd Wright, and are used with permission of Joe D. Price.
From Building Blocks to the Polymers of Life 119

polymers can form only if an array of intermediates is formed first. For

example, a 50-monomer polymer (a 50-mer) can form only if the re-
action mixture contains appreciable amounts of the intermediate 2- to
49-mers (figure 4.5). To facilitate the formation of long polymers, it is
desirable to limit the synthetic steps, possibly by adding activated
monomers only to fairly long oligomers. One can, for example, form
polymers on a mineral surface that absorbs longer oligomers from so-
lution. But even in such systems, it remains necessary to prepare ap-
preciable amounts of each intermediate compound.
Chemical reactions on mineral surfaces may have provided a prebi-
otic route to the kinds of polymers required for the first life on Earth
(Bernal 1949). Polymers can bind to such substrates—longer polymers
more strongly than the shorter. Leslie Orgel, who dubbed this notion
“life on the rocks,” developed the theory for their formation (Gibbs
et al. 1980; Ferris et al. 1996; Orgel 1998). Orgel noted that when a
polymer binds to a mineral surface, the free energy of binding increases
linearly as monomers are added, one by one, to the polymer chain.
Thus, as the number of monomers increases from n to n  1 units, the
increase in free energy is proportional to the ratio of the distribution
coefficients (K values), where

a b
concentration of n-mers in solution
concentration of n-mers adsorbed
1F2 
concentration of n  1-mers in solution
a b
concentration of n  1-mers adsorbed

By measuring the distribution coefficients for oligoglutamic acid poly-

mers bound to the mineral hydroxyapatite (figure 4.6), it is possible to
determine that (F), the change in free energy as each monomer unit
is added, amounts to –0.85 kcal per unit. Using this value of (F), it
becomes possible to calculate that the distribution constant of the var-
ious oligoglutamic acid polymers on hydroxyapatite increases by a fac-
tor of 4.2 as a chain is extended by one monomer unit. A polymer made
up of six glutamic acid monomers, a hexamer of glutamic acid (figure
4.6; n  4), has a K value of 1 (Hill et al. 1998). From these obser-
vations, it can be calculated that a polymer elongated to a 16-mer (fig-
ure 4.6; n  14) has a distribution coefficient of about 1  106—a K
value indicating that the polymer is permanently bound to the mineral.
The chain length achieved during the nonbiological synthesis of poly-
mers depends on the competing rates of polymer formation and polymer
120 James P. Ferris

Figure 4.6. The structure

of polyglutamic acid, a
polypeptide synthesized
on the surface of the
mineral hydroxyapatite
(R  CH2CH2COOH;
n  6–15).

hydrolysis. For polypeptides and nucleic acids, hydrolytic breakdown

is energetically favored, but polymer formation on mineral substrates
does occur. For example, the half-time for hydrolysis of the peptide
bond between two glycine amino acid monomers is 500 years at 25C
(Radzicka and Wolfenden 1996); thus, a 50-monomer glycine polymer
can form on a mineral substrate in 0.2 years (73 days).
From these considerations, we can draw a general conclusion: In the
presence of water, only polymers capable of (1) undergoing slow hy-
drolysis and (2) binding to minerals can be expected to grow into long
polymers under plausibly prebiotic conditions. And polynucleotides and
polypeptides are two such polymers.

the rna world: the prebiotic synthesis of rna

The consensus among scientists concerned with the origins of life is
that RNA was the most important biopolymer in early (but not nec-
essarily the first) life on Earth. This agreement is based on the follow-
ing considerations:

1. RNA can store genetic information in its sequence of chemical

bases (the pattern of distribution of its component purines
and pyrimidines).
2. RNA catalyzes the transformations of RNAs and other
biologically crucial compounds (for example, the synthesis of
proteins, catalyzed by RNAs present in ribosomes, the tiny
globular protein factories of cells).
3. Chemically manufactured RNAs having no catalytic activity,
or only one particular catalytic function, can “evolve” under
test-tube conditions into molecular structures having different
catalytic functions.
From Building Blocks to the Polymers of Life 121

Many workers studying the origin of life think that simple, precursor
RNAs formed first and that modern-day RNAs evolved from these pre-
RNAs. They support this idea by observing that no one has discovered
the pathways to potential prebiotic sources of activated RNA monomers
(for a review, see Schwartz 1998). Nevertheless, the possible steps in pre-
biotic RNA synthesis are better known than are those of the proposed
pre-RNAs. Of the various routes thus far explored, RNA synthesis by
polymerization of activated monomers has proved the most successful.

The Montmorillonite Clay–Catalyzed Synthesis of RNA

The possible role of minerals (specifically, clay minerals) in the prebiotic

reactions of organic compounds was first proposed by Bernal (1949),
who focused on the selective concentration of organics by adsorption
on clay surfaces, the protection of the adsorbed organics from solar ra-
diation, and the photopolymerization of the clay-adsorbed organics.
One of the most successful applications of Bernal’s proposal was the
formation of RNA oligomers containing 6 to 14 monomer units—poly-
mers formed by binding to and polymerizing on montmorillonite clay.
In these polymers, the activating group was an imidazole (figure 4.4)
attached to a phosphate group (Ferris and Ertem 1992; Ferris 1993). And
the reaction is general: Oligomers form whether the nucleotide base in-
volved is adenine, cytosine, guanine, or uracil (figure 4.7). Purines have
also been used successfully as activating groups, but pyrophosphates (like
the triphosphates used in living systems today) have not proved effective.
Catalysis is particularly important during such polymer formation
because it has the potential to limit the number of isomers formed. A
catalytic binding site can constrain the orientation of the reactants while
they are undergoing chemical transitions. For example, a 3,5-linked
phosphodiester bond should be favored in the reaction of purine nu-
cleotides on montmorillonite. However, an alternative linkage, a 2,5-
linked phosphodiester bond, is favored both in the clay-catalyzed
reactions of pyrimidine nucleotides and in the absence of catalysis. (For
the 2, 3, and 5 positions on nucleotides, and the structures of purines
and pyrimidines in RNA, see figure 4.1a.)
Dimers are not formed at random. Rather, the dimers made in reac-
tion mixtures containing two or more kinds of activated nucleotides show
sequence selectivity (Ertem and Ferris 2000). At the end of the two-part
chain produced in this first step of polymerization, formation of a 5-
purine–pyrimidine sequence is favored over that of a 5-pyrimidine–purine
122 James P. Ferris

Figure 4.7. Activated monomers of the nucleotides of adenine (A) and uracil
(U) reacting to form an RNA polymer on a mineral surface. In water, some
activated monomers remain in solution while others become bound to the
mineral surface. Elongation of pAUUA (an RNA whose nucleotides contain,
sequentially, adenine, uracil, uracil, and adenine) is shown by the arrow;
this indicates formation of a chemical bond from the terminal A of pAUUA
to an activated monomer of U, thereby forming an RNA molecule having
the composition pAUUAU.

TABLE 4.1 MAJOR DIMERIC PRODUCTS OF FOUR

ACTIVATED MONOMERS OF MONONUCLEOTIDES IN
THE PRESENCE OF MONTMORILLONITE

Yield
Dimer (%)
pApC 23
pApU 14
pGpC 14
pApA 13
pGpA 9
Total yield 73

sequence by a factor of about 20:1. We can see the selectivity imposed

by montmorillonite clay if we look at the dimeric products of a reaction
mixture containing the activated monomers of all four nucleotides.
Although 16 dimers were possible, just five (AC, AU, GC, AA, and GA)
were major reaction products, comprising 73% of the total (table 4.1).
And of the 11 minor dimers (AG, CC, CU, CA, CG, UC, UU, UA, UG,
GU, GG), three made up less than 2%.
From Building Blocks to the Polymers of Life 123

Figure 4.8. The elongation of a 10-mer made up of nucleotides of adenine

bound to the clay mineral montmorillonite. The 10-mer is “fed” daily by
the addition of fresh activated monomer, and the chain grows from a
10-mer to a mixture of 10-mers to 50-mers over a 14-day period.

RNA Elongation

Probably, the formation of short RNA oligomers by catalysis on mont-

morillonite was not sufficient to initiate the RNA World (discussed in
chapter 5). But it is possible to use the life-on-the-rocks approach to
generate fairly long RNAs by elongating short oligomers. In one set of
experiments, reactive monomers were added daily to 10-mers of the
nucleotide adenosine bound to montmorillonite, and the progress of
elongation was followed for 14 days (Ferris et al. 1996). The length of
the polymers increased incrementally up to 40-mers and 50-mers (fig-
ure 4.8). Comparably long oligomers of nucleotides of uracil, and of a
copolymer of nucleotides of adenine and uracil, were formed in simi-
lar experiments.
On the early Earth, elongation of RNA to chains longer than 40-
mers could have provided the RNAs needed to begin the RNA World.
As outlined in chapter 5, it has been proposed that such RNAs would
have been able to replicate by template-directed synthesis with suffi-
cient fidelity to maintain in their sequence structure the overall infor-
mation content needed for life (Joyce and Orgel 1999). In addition, it
has been postulated that a 40-mer chain length is the minimum required
for an RNA able to catalyze reactions of other RNA molecules (Joyce
and Orgel 1999; Szostak and Ellington 1993). Elongation of oligomers
of RNA to 40-mers or longer, now shown experimentally, may be the
“missing link,” bridging the gap between short polymers of RNA and
a population of RNAs long enough to initiate the RNA World.

Template-Directed Synthesis

The sequence information in RNA—the pattern of distribution of its

four component nucleotides—is preserved when one RNA chain serves
as a template for the synthesis of its complementary chain. Then, the
newly made complementary chain can be used as a template for further
124 James P. Ferris

synthesis, resulting in formation of an RNA containing a replica of the

original sequence. Nonenzymatic template-directed syntheses have used
3,5-linked templates, and recent research has explored the use of tem-
plates produced by catalysis on montmorillonite. In particular, Ertem
and Ferris (1996) have shown that clay catalysis of activated monomers
of cytosine nucleotides produces oligocytosines (oligo-Cs) having
mostly (70%) 2,5-linkages and relatively few (20%) 3,5-linkages.
In addition to phosphodiester bonds, the oligo-Cs thus formed con-
tained pyrophosphate linkages, and some of the chains cyclized to make
cyclic oligomers. Surprisingly, the heterogeneity of this mixture, with
its diverse linkages and bond types, did not promote formation of struc-
tures that inhibit template-directed synthesis, but complementary
strands of oligoguanosines (oligo-Gs) were formed when heterogeneous
oligo-Cs were used as a template. Of particular interest is the obser-
vation that complementary oligo-Gs formed despite removal of the
3,5-linkages from the heterogeneous templates.
These studies show that the sequence information present in RNA
oligomers formed by clay mineral catalysis could have been maintained
by template-directed synthesis. Indeed, the diversity of the bonding pres-
ent in the highly heterogeneous oligo-C mixture suggests that the
sequence information present in almost any mix of RNA oligomers
formed by prebiotic processes could have been maintained by such
template-directed synthesis.

Metal Ion Catalysis of RNA Synthesis

Like minerals, metal ions may have played important catalytic roles in
the emergence of life on Earth. Various metal ions are known to cat-
alyze the synthesis of short oligomers of RNA from activated
monomers, but the uranyl ion (UO22) is one of the few metal ions
known to catalyze the formation of oligomers containing ten or more
monomer units (Sawai et al. 1989). The phosphate-activating group
used in such studies was imidazole, the same chemical group used in
montmorillonite-catalyzed reactions. Oligomers of adenine, uracil, and
cytosine were formed in which the maximum chain lengths obtained
were 16, 12, and 10, respectively (Sawai et al. 1992). Because the uranyl
ion did not catalyze the hydrolysis of the activated monomers, the ex-
tent of conversion of monomer to oligomer was very high, and most of
the phosphodiester bonds in the RNAs produced were 2,5-linkages.
From Building Blocks to the Polymers of Life 125

Figure 4.9. The conversion of a proposed pre-RNA monomer to a polymer

whose component monomers are linked by pyrophosphate groups. (The
scheme at the bottom is a simplified representation of this conversion.)

RNA Analogs

Arguing that RNA is too complicated to have formed on the primi-

tive Earth, many scientists have begun looking for simpler struc-
tures—pre-RNAs—that could have evolved into RNA. Among these
is a promising monomeric structure that may have formed oligomers
containing ten or more monomer units linked by pyrophosphate
groups.
Pyrophosphate groups form easily under prebiotic conditions, so
their possible role in linking nucleotides has been studied in some de-
tail. This approach was applied to a nonchiral nucleotide analog that
contains a barbituric acid ring (figure 4.9). It is possible (but not
demonstrated) that this monomer may have formed on the primitive
Earth (Van Vliet et al. 1995). The barbituric acid–containing
monomer is also attractive because it is not chiral; thus it is not sub-
ject to enantiomeric inhibition of polymer synthesis and does not form
polymers containing both enantiomers. In the presence of a divalent
manganese (Mn2) catalyst, the reaction of this monomer, both at
0C for 14 weeks and at 37C for 3 days, resulted in the formation
of 15-mers. Other pre-RNAs also have been proposed (including some
that have been used in template-directed synthesis of RNA, as dis-
cussed in chapter 5), but their plausible prebiotic syntheses have not
been described.
126 James P. Ferris

the role of polypeptides in the origin of life

Despite many studies of the prebiotic synthesis of amino acid polymers,
the relevance of such peptides to life’s beginnings is not clear. How, for
instance, could a complex polypeptide having a specific property (say,
the ability to catalyze phosphodiester bond formation) form more than
once in a purely random prebiotic polymerization process? This seems
most unlikely, with a single exception—a polypeptide formed by a cat-
alytic process in which the catalyst dictated the amino acid sequence.
(In this situation, the catalyst would contain the “memory” needed to
synthesize the particular sequence of amino acids in the peptide; thus,
it could catalyze formation of additional copies having its particular
catalytic activity.)
In the following sections, we describe the prebiotic formation of
polypeptides containing more than 8 to 10 amino acids, a lower limit
chosen because 8 to 10 amino acids is the optimal length of a leucine–
lysine polypeptide chain (shown in figure 4.2c) needed to catalyze the
hydrolysis of polyadenosine (poly-A).

Prebiotic Polypeptides: Structure

Several studies of well-characterized, laboratory-synthesized polypeptides

offer insight into their secondary (folded) structures and catalytic prop-
erties. Today, we can tailor-make polypeptides that fold preferentially
into -helices (figure 4.10), -sheets (figure 4.11), or random coils. And
by investigating the properties of such structures, we can make informed
conjectures about which types played a catalytic role in the origin of life.
The -sheet secondary structure forms spontaneously from polypeptide
chains made up of amino acids with alternating hydrophobic (water-
hating) and hydrophilic (water-loving) side chains, as in the leucine–
lysine polymer shown in figure 4.2c (Brack and Orgel 1975). This poly-
peptide chain folds spontaneously into a -sheet structure that has the
hydrophilic, polar (charged) lysine–NH3 side chains arrayed on one side
of the sheet, and the hydrophobic (nonpolar, noncharged) leucine side
chains [– CH2CH(CH3)2] on the other (Brack 1993, 1994).
Experimental studies support the proposal that such -sheets played
an important role in the origin of life. Polypeptide structures of this
type are ten times more resistant to hydrolytic breakdown than are
peptide chains made up of random coils or those having an -helical
conformation. This difference in stability suggests that polypeptides in
Figure 4.10. Protein-like polypeptides can fold to form -helical structures.
(Left) -Helix with all its structural units; the dotted lines indicate intramol-
ecular hydrogen bonds. (Right) The peptide-chain backbone of the -helix
shown, which illustrates the helical conformation of the molecule around a
central axis. Reprinted from Biochemistry (Moran and Scrimgcour 1992),
with permission from Prentice-Hall.
 Figure 4.11. (a) The -sheet secondary structure present in many pro-
teins. (b) A -sheet secondary structure in which the configuration at
carbon atom A is inverted from that in normal proteins. In the latter
arrangement, the R group on carbon A crowds the hydrogen attached
to carbon atom B, thereby destabilizing the -sheet.

-sheet conformations had longer lifetimes than those in the other con-
figurations; thus, they would have been more readily available for
incorporation into the first forms of life. If so, this preference would
have resulted in prebiotic chemical selection of amino acids capable of
forming -sheets. Further, such selectivity suggests that the earliest
From Building Blocks to the Polymers of Life 129

Figure 4.12. The hydrolytic breakdown of a polynucleotide is catalyzed by

polypeptides folded into -sheets.

biological systems contained a limited number of different amino acids

(Brack 1987)—not the wide array formed in Miller-type simulation ex-
periments (chapter 3) or brought to Earth by meteorites (chapter 2).

Prebiotic Polypeptides: Catalysis

Studies of laboratory-synthesized polypeptides also provide important

clues about what type of catalytic activity the different conformations
may have provided to the earliest forms of life. In particular, it has been
found that multicharged (polycationic) polypeptides made up of
arginine–NH3 or lysine–NH3 monomers and hydrophobic amino
acids accelerate the hydrolytic breakdown of RNA (Barbier and Brack
1992). In these experiments, the rate of hydrolysis was greatest when
the polypeptide was in the -sheet conformation. As shown in figure
4.12, polypeptides of this type hydrolyze small RNA molecules into
components that contain a repeating series of adenosines (oligo-As).
The polypeptide increases the rate of hydrolysis over that observed in
its absence 150-fold. The hydrolysis of RNAs having poly-U, poly-C,
and poly-G compositions was also observed. And studies of the effect
of polypeptide chain length on such catalytic activity reveal that more
or less optimum activity is obtained with short polypeptides, those
about 10 amino acids long (10-mers). Moreover, catalysis is not ex-
clusively a feature of the -sheet conformation, since a structurally re-
lated -helical polypeptide [poly(leucine–lysine–lysine–leucine)] also ex-
hibits catalytic activity, albeit at a lower (1.5- to 2.1-fold) level.
The important finding from these experiments is that short -sheet
polypeptides catalytically break down—hydrolyze—the phosphodi-
ester bonds of RNAs. Such breakdown is just the opposite of the chem-
ical buildup required for the origin of life (though scarcely surprising,
since hydrolysis is energetically favored over phosphodiester bond for-
mation). Yet, applied to an energetically favored reaction—such as the
formation of RNAs from activated mononucleotides—this finding does
suggest the possibility that a -sheet catalyzed the prebiotic formation
of RNA-type molecules.
130 James P. Ferris

Figure 4.13. Amino acids in the L-configuration (such as L-alanine) can

be converted into a mixture of equal amounts of L- and D-amino acids
(D-alanine and L-alanine); this process is called racemization.

During laboratory syntheses of polypeptides, it is common for the

component amino acids to become racemized (that is, amino acids of
a single isomeric configuration change, so that the resulting polymer
contains equal amounts of two stereoisomers—half in the original
configuration and half in the mirror-image form). An example of the
racemization of a single amino acid is shown in figure 4.13. The amino
acids in living systems today are almost exclusively in the levorotatory
L-configuration (that is, in pure solutions of such compounds, plane-
polarized light is rotated to the levo, or leftward, direction). But labo-
ratory experiments have shown that in partially racemized prebiotic
mixtures, where some amino acids are present in both their L and D
forms (pure solutions of compounds in the D-configuration rotate plane-
polarized light in the dextro, or rightward, direction), the ability of a
polypeptide to fold into a -sheet structure is seriously impeded (fig-
ure 4.11a). The side chains of D-amino acids will not participate in -
sheet formation with L-amino acids because the space between the sheet-
forming polypeptide chains is insufficient. (Interestingly, however, this
stricture does not apply to -helices made up of D- and L-isomers
because the side chains of the amino acids are directed away from the
-helical backbone and do not impede its formation.)

Thermolysis of Amino Acids to Form Polypeptides

The initial approach to the prebiotic formation of polypeptides con-

sisted of heating mixtures of amino acids to dryness until, with loss of
a water molecule between each pair of monomers, bonds formed to
generate amino acid polymers. This process did indeed produce poly-
mers and those polymers exhibited the normal peptide bonds of pro-
teins. However, their component amino acids were linked by other kinds
From Building Blocks to the Polymers of Life 131

of bonds as well. For example, by heating mixtures of amino acids

(mixtures that typically contained a 10-fold proportion of the amino
acids glutamic acid, aspartic acid, or lysine) at 180C for 2 to 5 hours,
Fox and co-workers formed globular amino acid-containing bodies
dubbed proteinoids (Fox and Dose 1977). The reaction products were
dark in color, suggesting that their components had at least partially
decomposed. In addition, the products were linked in part by other
than peptide bonds, and they were either partially or totally racemized.
From an origin-of-life point of view, the prebiotic scenario envisioned
by such a process has a significant disadvantage. It requires a heating
and drying of amino acids on hot volcanic rocks—a setting that may
not have been widespread on the primitive Earth.

Formation of Polypeptides by Heating Amino Acid Amides

Conversion of an amino acid to its chemically activated, closely related

amino acid amide (an amino acid-like compound that contains two
NH2 groups) provides sufficient energy to drive the formation of a pep-
tide bond between the resulting amide and a nearby amino acid. Figure
4.14 shows the hydrolytic breakdown of an amino acid amide, an en-
ergetically comparable reaction that releases 5.8 kcal/mol (Dobry and
Sturtevandt 1952). Thus, peptide bonds between amino acids can be
formed at much lower temperatures if the starting mixture is made up
of amino acid amides instead of the amino acids themselves. And, on
early Earth, the amides needed to participate in such a reaction could
easily have come from hydrolytic breakdown of amino nitriles, which are
formed readily by the Strecker syntheses discussed in chapter 3.
Beginning with solutions of such amino acid amides, Ito and col-
leagues (1990) showed that repeated drying and heating in the presence
of the clay mineral kaolin yields a substantial array of polypeptides.
The presence of the clay mineral enhanced the yield of polypeptides
(although the precise mechanism of this enhancement is as yet un-
known). If ten hydration–dehydration cycles were used, the yield of the
polymer was 10%. Heating the mixture to dryness was an essential
part of the cycle; if the solutions of amino acid amides were not thus
concentrated, the yields of the peptides were low. The resulting poly-
mers were linked mainly by peptide bonds and had molecular weights
between 1000 and 4000. Although some racemization of the polymer-
forming amino acids occurred, the addition of divalent metal ions
(Cu2, Ca2, or Zn2) to the reaction mixture suppressed it. Starting
132 James P. Ferris

Figure 4.14. The hydrolysis of an amino acid amide (having two NH2
groups) to the amino acid (having one NH2 group) and ammonia (NH3).
This reaction is energetically favored in aqueous solution, demonstrating
that the amino acid amide is an activated form of the amino acid.

with mixtures of the amides of glycine, alanine, valine, and aspartic

acid, Ito and colleagues used spectral analyses to show that the poly-
mers formed contained 6% -helices, 42% -sheets, and 52% random
conformations, and that the extent of -helix and -sheet formation
varied with the amino acid used.
Owing to their low-temperature formation, and the resulting cre-
ation (mainly) of peptide bonds, amide-derived polypeptides have many
of the properties of polypeptides found in biological systems. Impor-
tantly, amide-activated amino acids provide a route to structures whose
peptide bonding is substantially or exclusively the same as that present
in proteins.

Polypeptide Formation on Clay Minerals

Paecht-Horowitz and Eirich (1988) have proposed a prebiotic model

based on the synthesis of proteins, as shown in figure 4.15. In this
model, the aminoacylphosphate derivatives of 5-AMP condense to
polypeptides in a reaction catalyzed by montmorillonite clay. The prod-
ucts of this reaction are polypeptides as long as 56-mers in which the
carbon-containing terminal groups are attached to the 2- and/or the
3-hydroxyl groups of 5-AMP (figure 4.14).

Polymerization of N-Carboxyanhydrides

N-Carboxyanhydrides (figure 4.16) are members of a group of com-

pounds known to chemists as Leuchs’ anhydrides. They are highly
effective activated amino acid derivatives known for the formation of
oligopeptides in aqueous solution (Brack 1987). One possible prebiotic
From Building Blocks to the Polymers of Life 133

Figure 4.15. From top to bottom, a reaction sequence in which an amino

acid (alanine) reacts with a nucleotide to form a polypeptide–nucleotide
compound. A simplified depiction of the polymerization is shown on the
right. Although reactions of this kind proceed on montmorillonite clay in the
presence of water, their precise mechanisms (at the curved arrow, for exam-
ple) have yet to be determined.

route to N-carboxyanhydrides is the reaction of amino acids with

dicarbonyl diimidazole shown in figure 4.15a (Ehler and Orgel 1976).
Peptide bond formation proceeds by the reaction of the amino group
of an amino acid with the N-carboxyanhydride (figure 4.16b).
N-Carboxyanhydrides of this kind are formed as reaction intermedi-
ates in aqueous solution where they rapidly polymerize to polypeptides.
134 James P. Ferris

Figure 4.16. The formation of (a) an activated (N-carboxyanhydride)

derivative of alanine by reaction with carbonyl diimidazole; (b) its subse-
quent reaction with alanine to form a peptide bond linking two alanine
monomers into a dimer. Simplified depictions of each reaction are also
shown.

The proposal that N-carboxyanhydrides were the precursors to poly-

peptides on the primitive Earth has at least five advantages:
●
Under the experimental conditions (0.05–0.1 M) used to date,
the rate of their polymerization in water is faster than their rate
of hydrolysis.
●
The amino acid components of the polymers formed are linked
only by peptide bonds.
●
The amino acids making up the peptides are not racemized dur-
ing polymer formation.
●
Oligomers containing up to 10-mers are formed in a single-step
process.
●
The polymerization reaction is selective for -amino acids, the
specific kind of amino acids present in the proteins of living
systems.
From Building Blocks to the Polymers of Life 135

Peptide Elongation on Minerals

The experimental procedure used to form polypeptides on mineral

surfaces is generally quite similar to that described earlier for the life-
on-the-rocks approach, in which polymers of RNA were successfully
elongated. But if the amino acids used for the formation of polypep-
tides are acidic (containing two or more carboxylic acid groups and a
single amino group), the process is even easier, largely because such
amino acids bind tightly to a mineral substrate.
Some minerals containing divalent metal ions (such as Ca2) bind
negatively charged organics to their surfaces. A good example is the
mineral hydroxyapatite, Ca5(PO4)3(OH), in which the Ca2 binds to
both aspartic acid and glutamic acid (Hill et al. 1998)—the two acidic
amino acids present in life today. Another mineral, the common clay
mineral illite, also binds negatively charged amino acids (Liu and Orgel
1998). Glutamic acid oligomers longer than 45-mers were formed on
hydroxyapatite and illite after 50 “feedings” of glutamic acid monomers
and a chemical condensing agent (carbonyl diimidazole). Two other
such experiments, using aspartic acid in place of glutamic and hy-
droxyapatite in place of illite, yielded polypeptides 25-mers and 13-mers
in length.

conclusions
Repeated attempts to synthesize RNA polymers by heating nonacti-
vated monomers to dryness in the absence of catalysts have yielded
only short oligomers, 10-mers or less in length. Moreover, such condi-
tions do not mimic those prevailing on the primitive Earth. Although
some high-temperature settings (for example, volcanic terrains) were
certainly present, oceans and seas of liquid water dominated the planet’s
surface, rendering an aqueous environment a much more likely setting
for prebiotic syntheses. But in an aqueous environment, RNA polymers
are rapidly broken down by hydrolysis. So, assuming that the synthe-
sis of RNA occurred at moderate temperatures in the waters of prebi-
otic Earth, catalyzed reactions of activated monomers must have been
required. Catalysis is also required to obtain the specific (phosphodi-
ester) bonding needed to build biologic-like RNAs and to achieve the
necessary selectivity of their base sequences. Indeed, Joyce and Orgel
(1999) have calculated that if two copies of all possible isomers of a
40-mer of RNA—a total of 1024 different isomers—were produced by
136 James P. Ferris

a strictly random process, the mixture would have a total mass com-
parable to that of the entire Earth! (However, the actual outcome of
such a random synthetic process using a limited number of activated
monomers would be formation of oligomers much shorter than 40-mers,
with very few polymers, if any, comprising as many as 50 monomer
units.)
Given the difficulties encountered in experimental studies of the pre-
biotic formation of the activated monomers of RNA (not to mention
the well documented chiral inhibition of its template-directed synthe-
sis), many have suggested that prebiotic formation of RNAs may have
been impossible on the primitive Earth. To get around this problem,
numerous workers have posited the initial formation of pre-RNAs—
compounds that then directed the synthesis of true RNAs. To date,
however, we have seen little progress toward the synthesis of pre-RNAs.
And even if such pre-RNAs were synthesized, many of the problems
that confound the prebiotic synthesis of RNA itself would remain to
be solved, including the problem of forming monomer subunits.
At present, the most promising approach to the prebiotic synthesis
of RNA polymers involves use of the catalytic properties of mineral
surfaces. In particular, it has been shown that RNA oligomers, 6-mers
to 14-mers long, can be synthesized from activated monomers of ade-
nine, cytosine, guanine, and uracil bound to the surface of montmo-
rillonite clay. In contrast with the most successful synthesis to date of
pre-RNA–type molecules (the Mn2-catalyzed formation of 15-mers of a
barbituric acid derivative linked by pyrophosphate units), clay-catalyzed
elongation of 10-mer primers has been shown to yield RNA-like
oligomers composed of 40 or more monomer units.
Since the primitive Earth affords numerous plausible sources for
amino acids, pre-amino acids have been little discussed. Attempts to
synthesize polypeptides by heating mixtures of amino acids to dryness
(a simulation of dying in a volcanic setting) have uniformly resulted in
degradation of the amino acids and formation of polymers having bonds
and other structural units that are not present in biological proteins.
Currently, the most productive route to the prebiotic formation of
polypeptides in aqueous solution is by means of the N-carboxyanhydride
derivatives of their component amino acids.
Sequence selectivity in the prebiotic synthesis of polypeptides would
be essential if these polymers were to play a useful role in the first forms
of life. Before life itself evolved, no genetic system would have been
available to preserve peptide sequence information (the all-important
From Building Blocks to the Polymers of Life 137

ordering of a peptide’s component amino acids). So, as in the prebiotic

synthesis of RNA polymers, catalysis may have been required to gen-
erate a population of peptides having the catalytic activity required for
early life. But catalyzed formation of polypeptides has yet to prove
fruitful. At present, therefore, the most promising solution appears to
be that of generating the needed sequence selectivity of polypeptides
by forming -sheets, a conformation that undergoes hydrolytic break-
down more slowly than other conformations (although such selectiv-
ity would have been somewhat limited, because the -sheet structure
requires a polypeptide chain composed of alternating hydrophobic and
hydrophilic amino acids).

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Support for the research described in this chapter that was carried out
at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute was provided by the National Science
Foundation, the NASA Exobiology Program, and the New York Center
for Studies on the Origins of Life: A NASA Specialized Center of
Research and Training.

REFERENCES

Barbier, B., and A. Brack. 1992. Conformation-controlled hydrolysis of polyri-

bonucleotides by sequential basic polypeptides. Journal of the American
Chemical Society 114:3511–15.
Bernal, J. D. 1949. The physical basis of life. Proceedings of the Royal Society
of London 357A:537–58.
Brack, A. 1987. Selective emergence and survival of early polypeptides in water.
Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere 17:367–79.
——. 1993. From amino acids to prebiotic active peptides: A chemical restitu-
tion. Pure and Applied Chemistry 65:1143–51.
——. 1994. Are peptides possible support for self-amplification of sequence
information. In Self-production of supramolecular structures. From synthetic
structures to models of minimal living systems, ed. G. R. Fleischaker,
S. Colonna, and P. L. Luisi, 115–24. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer.
Brack, A., and L. E. Orgel. 1975. -Structures of alternating polypeptides and
their possible prebiotic significance. Nature 256:383–87.
Dobry, A., and J. M. Sturtevandt. 1952. Heat of hydrolysis of amide and pep-
tide bonds. Journal of Biological Chemistry 195:141–47.
Ehler, K. W., and L. E. Orgel. 1976. N,N-carbonyldiimidazole-induced peptide
formation in aqueous solution. Biochimica et Biophysica Acta 434:233–43.
Ertem, G., and J. P. Ferris. 1996. Synthesis of RNA oligomers on heterogeneous
templates. Nature 379:238–40.
138 James P. Ferris

Ertem, G., and J. P. Ferris. 2000. Sequence- and regio-selectivity in the mont-
morillonite-catalyzed synthesis of RNA. Origins of Life and Evolution of
the Biosphere 30:411–22.
Ferris, J. P. 1993. Catalysis and prebiotic RNA synthesis. Origins of Life and
Evolution of the Biosphere 23:307–15.
Ferris, J. P., and G. Ertem. 1992. Oligomerization reactions of ribonucleotides
on montmorillonite: Reaction of the 5-phosphorimidazolide of adenosine.
Science 257:1387–89.
Ferris, J. P., A. R. Hill Jr., R. Liu, and L. E. Orgel. 1996. Synthesis of long pre-
biotic oligomers on mineral surfaces. Nature 381:59–61.
Fox, S. W., and K. Dose. 1977. Molecular Evolution and the Origin of Life.
New York: Marcel Dekker.
Gibbs, D., R. Lohrmann, and L. E. Orgel. 1980. Template-directed synthesis
and selective adsorption of oligoadenylates on hydroxyapatite. Journal of
Molecular Evolution 15:347–54.
Hill, A. R. Jr., C. Böhler, and L. E. Orgel. 1998. Polymerization on the rocks:
Negatively charged -amino acids. Origins of Life and Evolution of the
Biosphere 28:235–43.
Ito, M., N. Handa, and H. Yanagawa. 1990. Synthesis of polypeptides by
microwave heating. II. Function of polypeptides synthesized during re-
peated hydration-dehydration cycles. Journal of Molecular Evolution
31:187–94.
Joyce, G. F., and L. E. Orgel. 1999. Prospects for understanding the origin of
the RNA world. In The RNA world. The nature of modern RNA suggests
a prebiotic RNA, ed. R. G. Gesteland, T. R. Cech, and J. F. Atkins. 49–77.
Cold Spring Harbor, N. Y.: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.
Liu, R., and L. E. Orgel. 1998. Polymerization of -amino acids in aqueous
solution. Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere 28:47–60.
Luisi, P. L. 1998. About various definitions of life. Origins of Life and
Evolution of the Biosphere 28:613–22.
Orgel, L. E. 1998. Polymerization on the rocks: Theoretical introduction.
Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere 28:227–34.
Paecht-Horowitz, M., and F. R. Eirich. 1988. The polymerization of amino acid
adenylates on sodium-montmorillonite with preadsorbed peptides. Origins
of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere 18:359–87.
Radzicka, A., and R. Wolfenden. 1996. Rates of uncatalyzed peptide bond
hydrolysis in neutral solution and the transition state affinities of proteases.
Journal of the American Chemical Society 118:6105–09.
Sawai, H., K. Higa, and K. Kuroda. 1992. Synthesis of cyclic and acyclic oligo-
cytidylates by uranyl ion catalyst in aqueous solution. Journal of the
Chemical Society, Perkin I:505–8.
Sawai, H., K. Kuroda, and H. Hojo. 1989. Uranyl ion as a highly effective cat-
alyst for internucleotide bond formation. Bulletin of the Chemical Society of
Japan 62.
Schwartz, A. 1998. Origins of the RNA world. In The molecular origins of life:
Assembling pieces of the puzzle, ed. A. Brack, 237–45. Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press.
From Building Blocks to the Polymers of Life 139

Szostak, J. W., and A. D. Ellington, eds. 1993. In Vitro selection of functional

RNA sequences. Cold Spring Harbor, NY: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Press.
Van Vliet, M. J., J. Visscher, and A. W. Schwartz. 1995. Hydrogen bonding in
the template-directed oligomerization of a pyrimidine nucleotide analog.
Journal of Molecular Evolution 41:257–61.

further reading
Anonymous, ed. 1987. Evolution of catalytic function: Cold Spring Harbor
Symposia on Quantitative Biology LII. Cold Spring Harbor, N. Y.: Cold
Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.
Brack, A., ed. 1998. Molecular origins of life: Assembling pieces of the puzzle.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fleischaker, G. R., S. Colonna, and P. L. Luisi, eds. 1994. Self-production of
supramolecular structures. From synthetic structures to models of minimal
living systems. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer.
Fry, I. 2000. The emergence of life on Earth: A historical and scientific
overview. New Brunswick, N. J.: Rutgers University Press.
Greenberg, J. M., C. X. Mendoza-Gomez, and V. Pirronella, eds. 1993. The
chemistry of life’s origin. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer.
Schopf, J. W. 1999. Cradle of life, The discovery of Earth’s earliest fossils.
Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press.
Zubay, G. 2000. Origins of life on the Earth and in the cosmos. San Diego,
Calif.: Academic.
chapter 5

The Origin of Biological

Information
leslie e. orgel

introduction
Organic chemists should have invented the computer scientists’ motto,
“Garbage in, garbage out.” Proceeding step by step, purifying the prod-
uct of one step before using it in the next: this is the orthodox ap-
proach to organic synthesis. Under carefully controlled conditions, it
is just possible to constrain the chemistry of a pure input compound
to give a unique product. But garbage in—an impure compound or a
complex mixture of compounds—does as it damn well pleases. And it
almost always yields an intractable mixture of products—garbage out.
Unfortunately, all of the most impressive prebiotic syntheses pro-
duce garbage by the standards of synthetic organic chemistry. For
example, Miller’s classic experiment (discussed in chapter 3) produces
tar along with a percent or two of a complex mixture of racemic amino
acids (Miller 1953), while Oró’s landmark synthesis of adenine from
hydrogen cyanide (chapters 1 and 3) produces an ill-characterized
brown precipitate along with, at most, a percent or two of the desired
nucleoside base (Oró and Kimball 1960). How could chemistry on the
primitive Earth proceed in such a messy way, producing information-
rich living cells, those exquisitely designed chemical factories, from such
unpromising starting materials? This is the central and as yet largely
unanswered question facing investigators of the origin of life.
We know that certain polymers control the functioning of all living
organisms on Earth. The proteins, composed of 20 standard amino
acids, are the machines that catalyze almost all of the chemical reactions

140
The Origin of Biological Information 141

that go on in cells. The nucleic acids are largely concerned with infor-
mation: DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) is a blueprint that dictates which
proteins are to be synthesized and when, while RNA (ribonucleic acid)
implements DNA’s instructions. And we now have overwhelming evi-
dence (discussed in chapter 6) that all contemporary living organisms
are descended from a Last Common Ancestor (LCA). The LCA lived
on Earth at least as early as 3,500 million years ago, and the members
of this plexus of early-evolved microorganisms had a biochemistry sim-
ilar to that of modern bacteria. In particular, the LCA employed nu-
cleic acids for the storage of genetic information and used proteins as
catalysts. Thus, if we are to understand the origins of life, we must un-
derstand the origin of the nucleic acid–protein system.
The replication of DNA is a process brought about by protein en-
zymes called DNA polymerases. Provided DNA replication is sufficiently
accurate, and the two DNA copies are distributed one to each daughter
when a cell divides, each daughter cell starts with the same genetic infor-
mation as that of the parental cell. This is the universal origin of heredity
in biology. The DNA polymerases are proteins, the amino acid sequences
of which are specified by the base sequence of appropriate segments of
DNA. Here, we cannot go into the process of protein synthesis in detail.
Suffice it to say that in the first step, the DNA sequence is transcribed
into messenger RNA (mRNA) by RNA polymerases, in a process simi-
lar to that involved in DNA replication. In a second step, the RNA is
translated into protein. The process of translation is extremely complicated,
involving scores of soluble proteins and an elaborate factory known as
a ribosome. The ribosome is made up of three RNA molecules and scores
more proteins. The result of translation is the production of a protein in
which the nature of each amino acid monomer in the protein sequence
is determined by the nature of three nucleotide residues in the nucleic
acid sequence. The nature of the relationship between amino acid residues
and nucleotide triplets defines the genetic code.
This account of the genetic system, admittedly a highly oversimpli-
fied one, only emphasizes that the processes of DNA replication and
protein synthesis are hopelessly intertwined in modern organisms. But
even this inadequate view demonstrates a conundrum: The replication
of DNA requires the pre-existence of protein enzymes, but the forma-
tion of protein enzymes requires the pre-existence of DNA. Since every-
one agrees that the whole complex system could not have come into
existence by chance in a single step, we have to ask the classic chicken-
and-egg question: Which came first, nucleic acids or proteins?
142 Leslie E. Orgel

A tentative solution emerged more than thirty years ago (Woese

1967; Crick 1968; Orgel 1968). It was suggested that a “primitive”
biological system in which proteins and DNA played no part preceded
the DNA–RNA–protein system. According to this hypothesis, RNA
could go it alone—functioning both as a genetic material in the man-
ner of modern DNA and as the basis for various types of catalysis, in-
cluding the catalysis of RNA replication. These theoretical ideas re-
ceived a great boost from the discovery of ribozymes, enzyme-like
catalysts composed entirely of RNA (Kruger et al. 1982; Guerrier-
Takada et al. 1983). The idea that there was once a protein-independent
biological world, the so-called RNA World, has by now come to be
widely accepted (although it remains unproven).
If we accept the RNA World hypothesis, we can restate the prob-
lem of the origin of life in a very simple two-part question: How did
the RNA World come into existence, and how did this world invent
the DNA–RNA–protein world? We can say very little in answer to the
second part of the question, so from now on let’s concentrate on the
first part, the origin and development of the hypothesized RNA World.

the rna world

It would be a mistake to think of the RNA World as fixed and un-
changing. Presumably, it started simple, but it finished complicated
enough to invent protein synthesis. Very different opinions about the
complexity of the RNA World have been expressed, probably because
some workers focus on its primitive beginnings while others concen-
trate on its mature state, just prior to the invention of ribosomal protein
synthesis. In the following, we first consider a very optimistic scenario
that explains how a simple RNA World could get started under very
favorable conditions—conditions admittedly different from those prevail-
ing on the primitive Earth. This is “The Molecular Biologist’s Dream”
(Joyce and Orgel 1999), which posits a primitive pool loaded with
chemically activated nucleotides waiting to be polymerized into RNA.
Later, we will take a more realistic view of the problem.

The Molecular Biologist’s Dream

On the way to an RNA World from a pool of nucleotides pre-activated

for polymerization—say as D-ribonucleoside-5-triphosphates (figure
5.1a)—the first step must have been the formation of polynucleotides
The Origin of Biological Information 143

Figure 5.1. The synthesis of an oligonucleotide from an activated mono-

nucleotide. (a) ATP, the substrate of enzymatic nucleic acid synthesis.
(b) An imidazolide of a nucleotide of the kind used in many nonenzymatic
template-directed reactions. (c) The synthetic reaction leading to the
formation of a trinucleotide.

(figure 5.1c). Consequently, a good deal of experimental work on the

nonenzymatic polymerization of activated mononucleotides has been
reported (Orgel 1998). Unfortunately, nucleoside triphosphates react
very slowly at moderate temperatures; this is an obstacle to laboratory
investigation, although it may have been unimportant on the primitive
Earth. Most recent experiments have been carried out using nucleoside-
5-phosphorimidazolides (figure 5.1b), compounds that can be consid-
ered triphosphate analogs. At first sight, the polymerization of nucleo-
side-5-phosphorimidazolides doesn’t seem very promising, since it yields
a complex mixture of very short oligonucleotides. The naturally occurring
144 Leslie E. Orgel

oligonucleotides are hardly formed at all. As discussed in chapter 4,

James Ferris and his co-workers offered a partial solution to this prob-
lem (Ferris 1998). They have shown that a common clay mineral,
montmorillonite, is an excellent catalyst for the oligomerization of
adenosine-5-phosphorimidazolide and the corresponding derivatives
of the other nucleoside bases. Oligoadenylic acids made up of as many
as 40 to 50 subunits (40- to 50-mers) have been obtained in this way
(Ferris et al. 1996), and nothing seems to impede the generation of het-
erooligomers containing all four bases. Furthermore, in some (but not
all) cases, the products formed when montmorillonite is used as a cata-
lyst are predominantly in the same (3–5) linkage as in biological nucleic
acids. Of course, the results obtained by Ferris and colleagues do not come
close to providing the mixture of oligonucleotides needed to facilitate the
next phase of the molecular biologist’s dream. But they do seem to jus-
tify the hope that with some activated derivative and some catalytic min-
eral it might be possible to generate just such a pool of oligonucleotides.
Let’s assume that this is the case, and that a random mixture of oligonu-
cleotides became available on the primitive Earth.
The development of a self-sustaining RNA World from a pool of
random polynucleotides could have occurred only by Darwinian selec-
tion at the molecular level. But no matter how remarkable its properties,
any single RNA molecule would have broken down in a fairly short
time. The only way a molecule could have influenced the long-term his-
tory of its environment is through repeated replication. Provided new
copies of a successful sequence were formed before the ancestral copy
was hydrolyzed, a single ancestral sequence could have sired an ever-
increasing family of descendents. And once a number of ancestral se-
quences with different replication rates began to compete with each
other, only the most efficient replicators would have survived.
These considerations lead us to the most important recent advance
in our understanding of the origin of life—the realization that the ex-
istence of polymeric molecules capable of replicating and competing is
both necessary and sufficient to account for the emergence of life. Next
we must ask another two-part question: Could RNA replicate without
the help of protein enzymes, and do RNA molecules have attributes
that permit Darwinian evolution via natural selection (competition)?
The jury is still out, but a good deal of encouraging experimental evi-
dence is already available.
Although the replication of nucleic acids in living organisms depends
on protein enzymes, the nucleotide bases are exquisitely preadapted to
The Origin of Biological Information 145

Figure 5.2. Template-directed oligonucleotide synthesis. A

complete copy of the template can be obtained by (a) poly-
merizing monomers or (b) ligating oligomers.

serve as the components of a replicating system. For example, both the

A–T (adenine–thymine) and G–C (guanine–cytosine) base pairs form
spontaneously when simple N-methyl derivatives of the bases are dissolved
in organic solvents (Katz et al. 1965). More importantly, monomeric de-
rivatives of the purine bases line up spontaneously on complementary poly-
mers of pyrimidine nucleotides at fairly low temperatures (Howard et al.
1966; Huang and Ts’o 1966); this is the prime property that makes nonen-
zymatic copying of nucleic acids relatively straightforward. For example,
if an activated derivative containing monomers of guanylic acid (G) is lined
up on a template made of polycytidylate (poly-C), the hydroxyl groups of
each monomer are brought close to the activated phosphate groups of its
neighbor, thus facilitating a rapid and efficient reaction (figure 5.2a).
146 Leslie E. Orgel

Figure 5.3. Template-directed synthesis on polycytidylate (poly-C). High-

performance liquid chromatograph (HPLC) elution profiles of self-condensation
of 2-MeImpG on poly-C at various pH values: (a) pH 7.0; (b) pH 7.6;
(c) pH 8.2; (d) pH 9.0. The numbers above selected peaks are the lengths of
the corresponding oligomers. Reaction conditions: 0ºC for 14 days; 0.4 M
2,6-lutidine # HCl buffer; 0.1 M 2-MeImpG; 0.1 M poly-C; 1.2 M NaCl;
0.2 M MgCl2. Conditions for HPLC: elution with a linear NaClO4 gradient
(pH 12, 0–0.06 M, 90 min); ultraviolet absorption monitored at 262 nm
(Inoue and Orgel 1982).

Many reactions of this type have been described. Here, we concen-

trate on reactions carried out in our laboratory at the Salk Institute,
using the 2-methyl imidazole derivatives of the nucleotides as substrates.
The products formed when guanosine-5-phosphoro-2-methylimida-
zolide (2-MeImpG) oligomerizes by itself in aqueous solution are rela-
tively short and uninteresting. But when a poly-C template is present
(Inoue and Orgel 1982), a remarkable reaction occurs and long
oligomers, up to at least the 40-mers, can be detected (figure 5.3). This
is the prototype of the template-directed reactions that we now discuss
in a little more detail.
The Origin of Biological Information 147

Our work on template-directed prebiotic synthesis of nucleic acids

could be considered completely successful only if all possible sequences
could be copied. As it turns out, this is far from the case. However,
through a series of detailed experimental studies, we have shown that
a great many sequences can be used as templates. The findings can be
partially summarized as follows:

●
Most templates containing more than 60% of C (cytosine) can
be copied efficiently, but templates containing less than 60% of
C cannot be copied.
●
Templates made up largely of C and G (guanine) cannot be
copied efficiently even if they contain an excess of C.
●
Sequences of two or more A (adenine) residues in the template
block elongation of the product oligomers.

Despite these drawbacks, quite long oligomers can be copied suc-

cessfully. An example of this kind of reaction (Acevedo and Orgel 1987)
is shown in figure 5.4.
Work in our laboratory has concentrated on the reactions of mononu-
cleotides, but ligation reactions between oligonucleotides are also pos-
sible (figure 5.2b). Reactions of this kind are easier to study because
they can be carried out at higher temperatures (Rohatgi et al. 1996). It
is particularly promising that substrates very similar to those used in
enzymatic replication ligate very specifically on appropriate RNA tem-
plates. It is less easy to decide whether monomers or short oligomers
are the preferred substrates for simulations of prebiotic reactions.
Oligomers would probably work better, but it is much harder to un-
derstand how they could have formed spontaneously on the primitive
Earth (Ferris and co-workers notwithstanding).
Although much work remains to be done, the results obtained so
far suggest that the formation and copying of long, single-stranded,
RNA oligomers could have occurred spontaneously, given a pool of
activated monomers. In many ways, the most exciting advance in pre-
biotic chemistry in the last decade is the demonstration that a pool of
random RNA oligomers of a size that can easily be handled in the lab-
oratory always contains substantial numbers of molecules that are
enzyme-like catalysts, and that relatively simple selection procedures
can be used to isolate very active catalysts from random mixtures. RNA
molecules that catalyze specific chemical reactions are called ribozymes.
148 Leslie E. Orgel

Figure 5.4. Template-directed synthesis on a 14-mer template. (a) The

expected products; (b) the identified products.

The isolation of new ribozymes is a very active field of research, but

it is already clear that ribozymes can catalyze many of the steps that
would be needed to create a self-sufficient RNA organism (table 5.1;
Bartel and Unrau 1999). For example, a single ribozyme can catalyze
both the synthesis of a nucleotide from a base and the synthesis of an
activated ribose phosphate, while another can act as a polymerase ca-
pable of efficiently copying an RNA template up to four or five bases
long. It is scarcely excessive optimism to believe that we will soon be
able to isolate ribozymes capable of carrying out the same reactions
that RNA and DNA polymerases perform.
The Origin of Biological Information 149

TABLE 5.1 EXAMPLES OF NEW RIBOZYMES FROM

RANDOM - SEQUENCE RNA SELECTIONS

Bond Formed Leaving Group Activity of Ribozyme

5-RNA
¬O
HO
¬PO ¬ 3 Phosphodiester cleavage
¬PO ¬ 3 Cyclic phosphate hydrolysis
¬O ¬PO ¬ 3 PPi RNA ligation
¬O ¬PO ¬ 3 PPi Limited polymerization
¬O ¬PO ¬ 3 AMP RNA ligation
¬O ¬PO ¬ 3 ADP RNA phosphorylation
¬O ¬PO ¬ 3 Imidizole Tetraphosphate cap formation
¬O ¬PO ¬ 3 Rpp Phosphate anhydride
transfer/hydrolysis
¬O¬PO ¬ 3 PPi RNA branch formation
¬O¬CO¬ AMP RNA aminoacylation
¬O¬CO¬ 3-RNA Acyl transfer
¬O¬CO¬ AMP Acyl transfer
¬HN¬CO¬ 3-RNA Amide bond formation
¬HN¬CO¬ AMP Peptide bond formation
¬N¬CH ¬ 2 I RNA alkylation
¬S¬CH ¬ 2 Br Thioalkylation
¬HC¬CH Diels–Alder addition
(anthracene–maleimide)
¬N¬CH PPi Glycosidic bond formation

The three research programs just described form the framework for
achieving the molecular biologist’s dream (figure 5.5). A reaction of the
type studied by Ferris and co-workers could have led to the formation
of a pool of random-sequence oligonucleotides, including, perhaps, an
RNA polymerase. Nonenzymatic copying could have converted single-
stranded RNA to double-helical RNA. Finally, the functional strand of
the double helix could have copied the complementary nonfunctional
strand to form a second functional strand. Then, repeated copying of
functional and nonfunctional strands could have given rise to an ex-
ponentially growing population of RNA copies capable of undergoing
selection, just as in the laboratory experiments on the selection of
functional RNA sequences. For this scenario to work, we have to
assume that the double-helical RNAs were isolated from each other to
prevent a successful polymerase from copying useless or competing
RNA sequences. At this point, enclosure in a membrane or some other
means of isolation would have become necessary. Attachment to a
150 Leslie E. Orgel

Figure 5.5. An optimistic scenario for the origin of the RNA World. (a) Pre-
biotic synthesis of activated nucleotides. (b) Synthesis of random oligomers on
a suitable mineral. (c, d) Nonenzymatic, template-directed synthesis of the
complements of the random oligomers. (e) Chain separation, the critical step,
in which one of the separated strands folds to form an RNA polymerase–like
ribozyme. (f–h) Repeated rounds of ribozyme-catalyzed copying.

mineral surface or some kind of a colloidal aggregate could well have

preceded enclosure in a well-defined micelle.

what’s wrong with

the molecular biologist’s dream ?
The trouble with this dream is that nucleotides are complicated molecules.
Many of the steps needed to form these nucleotides do not proceed ef-
ficiently under prebiotic conditions. For example, the prebiotic synthesis
The Origin of Biological Information 151

of sugars from formaldehyde gives a complex mixture of products, in

which ribose is just a minor component. Moreover, it is difficult to form
nucleosides from a base and a sugar, and the synthesis of pyrimidine nu-
cleosides has not been achieved under plausibly prebiotic conditions.
Similarly, the phosphorylation of nucleosides tends to give a complex
mixture of products (Ferris 1987). The inhibition of the template-directed
reactions on D-templates by L-substrates is a difficulty of a different, and
more fundamental, kind. No one has found a way to form D-nucleotides
without forming an almost equal amount of L-nucleotides (Joyce et al.
1984). It is nearly inconceivable that nucleic acid formation and repli-
cation could have begun without a much simpler mechanism for the pre-
biotic synthesis of nucleotides. Eschenmoser and his colleagues (Müller
et al. 1990) have had considerable success in generating ribose 2,4-diphos-
phate in a potentially prebiotic reaction from very simple starting
materials—glycoaldehyde monophosphate and formaldehyde. This sug-
gests that the direct prebiotic synthesis of nucleotides by novel chemistry
is not hopeless. Nonetheless, it seems more likely that some simpler or-
ganized form of chemistry preceded the RNA World. This leads us to a
discussion of genetic takeover.

Genetic Takeover and Pre-RNA Worlds

Cairns-Smith has emphasized how improbable it is that a molecule as

complex as RNA could have appeared de novo on the primitive Earth.
To get around this problem, he proposed that the first form of life was
a self-replicating clay (Cairns-Smith 1982). In this Clay World, the syn-
thesis of organic molecules became part of a competitive strategy in
which the inorganic clay genome was taken over by one of its organic
creations. Cairns-Smith’s postulate of a primordial inorganic life form
has gathered no experimental support. However, he also contemplated
the possibility that RNA was preceded by one or more simpler linear
organic genomes (Cairns-Smith and Davies 1977). This idea is now
very popular, but its full implications have not always been appreciated.
If RNA was not the first genetic material, the biochemistry of living
organisms may not provide any clues to the earliest chemistry involved
in the origin of life. The biological world that immediately preceded the
RNA world must already have had the capacity to synthesize nucleotides.
This should help us guess something about its chemical characteristics.
However, if there were two or more “worlds” before the RNA World, the
original chemistry might have left no trace in contemporary biochemistry.
152 Leslie E. Orgel

In that case, the chemistry of the origins of life is unlikely to be discov-

ered without investigating all the chemistry that might have occurred on
the primitive Earth, whether or not that chemistry has any relation to
biochemistry. At present we can only speculate.
The only informational systems, other than nucleic acids, that have
been discovered are fairly closely related to nucleic acids. Eschenmoser
and his colleagues (Eschenmoser 1997) have undertaken a systematic
study of the properties of nucleic acid analogs in which either ribose
is replaced by another sugar or the normal furanose form of ribose (a
five-membered ring) is replaced by the pyranose form (a six-membered
ring). Polynucleotides based on the pyranosyl isomer of ribose (p-RNA)
are able to pair tightly, thus forming Watson–Crick double helices
(figure 5.6), which are more stable than RNA; moreover, p-RNAs are
less likely than the corresponding natural RNAs to form multiple-strand
competing structures (Eschenmoser 1997). Pyranosyl RNA seems to be
an excellent candidate for a genetic system; it might even be an im-
provement on the standard nucleic acids in some ways. More recently,
Eschenmoser has reported that certain oligomers containing tetrose (a
four-carbon sugar) rather than pentose (a five-carbon sugar) also form
base-paired double helices (Eschenmoser 1999). However, prebiotic
synthesis of either pyranosyl nucleotides or tetrose-based nucleotides
does not seem much easier than synthesis of the standard isomers.
Peptide nucleic acids (PNAs), also nucleic acid analogs, have been
studied extensively (figure 5.6c). PNAs were synthesized by Nielsen and
colleagues (Egholm et al. 1992) in an attempt to develop inhibitors of
protein synthesis (antisense RNAs). A PNA molecule is an uncharged,
achiral analog of a standard nucleic acid in which the sugar–phosphate
backbone of RNA or DNA is replaced by a backbone held together by
amide bonds. PNA forms very stable double helices with complemen-
tary molecules of RNA or DNA (Egholm et al. 1992, 1993). We have
shown that information can be transferred from PNA to RNA, and
vice versa, in template-directed reactions (Schmidt et al. 1997a,b), and
that PNA–DNA chimeras form readily on either DNA or PNA templates
(Koppitz, Nielsen, and Orgel 1998). Thus, a transition from a PNA
World to an RNA World is possible. Nevertheless, it is unlikely that
PNA was important on the early Earth, because PNA monomers cy-
clize when they are activated; this would make oligomer formation very
difficult under prebiotic conditions.
The studies just described suggest that there are many ways of link-
ing nucleotide bases into chains that can form Watson–Crick double
The Origin of Biological Information 153

Figure 5.6. Informational polymers (a) RNA (ribonucleic acid) and,

denoted by parentheses, DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). (b) p-RNA (pyra-
nosyl RNA, a ribonucleic acid in which the five-membered furanose form
of ribose is replaced by its six-membered isomer, the pyranose form).
(c) PNA (peptide nucleic acid, an analog of RNA or DNA having a
backbone held together by amide bonds rather than the standard
sugar–phosphate linkage).

helices. If we could discover a structure of this kind that could be syn-

thesized easily under prebiotic conditions, it would be a strong candi-
date for the very first genetic material. However, another possibility
remains to be explored: namely, that the first genetic material might
have involved no nucleoside bases at all. Two or more very simple
molecules could have the pairing properties needed to form a genetic
polymer—a positively charged and a negatively charged amino acid, for
example. However, it is not clear that stable structures of this kind exist.
Because the RNA backbone permits simultaneous base pairing and base
stacking, the RNA molecule clearly is adapted to double-helix forma-
tion. It is unclear that molecules much simpler than a nucleotide could
substitute for them to produce a stacked structure. Perhaps some other
154 Leslie E. Orgel

interaction between the chains can stabilize a double helix in the ab-
sence of base-stacking. Binding to a mineral surface might supply the
necessary constraints, but this remains to be demonstrated. In the ab-
sence of experimental evidence, we can say little that is useful. Clearly,
this is a key problem for students of the origins of life, and it should be
tackled vigorously by experimentalists as soon as possible.

the metabolist argument

A very large gap separates the limited complexity of molecules that are
readily synthesized in simulations of the chemistry of the early Earth
from the complicated molecules known to form potentially replicating
informational structures. Several workers have therefore proposed that
metabolism may have come before genetics (Kauffman 1986;
Wächtershäuser 1988; De Duve 1991). Their idea is that substantial
organization of reaction sequences can occur in the absence of a genetic
polymer and, hence, that the first genetic polymer probably appeared
in an already specialized chemical or biochemical environment. Because
it is hard to envisage a chemical cycle that produces -D-nucleotides,
this theory would fit best if a simpler genetic system preceded RNA.
There is no agreement concerning the extent to which metabolism
could develop independently of a genetic material. As far as I am aware,
no experimental evidence supports the notion that long sequences of
reactions can organize spontaneously. The problem of achieving suffi-
cient specificity, whether in aqueous solution or on the surface of a
mineral, is so intractable that there is little chance of closing a cycle of
reactions as complex as, say, the reverse citric acid cycle. The metabolist
argument is in desperate need of experimental support.

conclusion and outlook

During the past few decades, we have learned a great deal about the
origin of life. The realization that an RNA World preceded the emergence
of our DNA-RNA-protein world is perhaps the most important new in-
sight. However, a very large gap separates the prebiotic chemistry of
small molecules from the chemistry of the RNA World. Presumably, the
gap will begin to close as chemists and molecular biologists pursue their
collaborative research programs.
The Origin of Biological Information 155

acknowledgments
This work was supported by NASA (grant number NAG5-4118) and
NASA NSCORT/EXOBIOLOGY (grant number NAG5-4546). I thank
Aubrey R. Hill, Jr. for technical assistance and Bernice Walker for
manuscript preparation.

REFERENCES

Acevedo, O. L., and L. E. Orgel. 1987. Non-enzymatic transcription of an

oligodeoxynucleotide 14 residues long. Journal of Molecular Biology
197:187–93.
Bartel, D. P., and P. J. Unrau. 1999. Constructing an RNA world. Trends in
Biochemical Sciences 24:M9–M12.
Cairns-Smith, A. G. 1982. Genetic takeover and the mineral origins of life.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cairns-Smith, A. G., and C. J. Davies. 1977. The design of novel replicating
polymers. In Encyclopaedia of Ignorance, ed. R. Duncan and M. Weston-
Smith, 391–403. New York: Pergamon.
Crick, F. H. C. 1968. The origin of the genetic code. Journal of Molecular
Biology 38:367–79.
De Duve, C. 1991. Blueprint for a cell: The nature and origin of life.
Burlington, N. C.: Neil Patterson.
Egholm, M., O. Buchardt, P. E. Nielsen, and R. H. Berg. 1992. Peptide nu-
cleic acids (PNA). Oligonucleotide analogues with an achiral peptide back-
bone. Journal of the American Chemical Society 114:1895–97.
Egholm, M., O. Buchardt, L. Christensen, C. Behrens, S. M. Freier, D. A.
Driver, R. H. Berg, S. K. Kim, B. Norden, and P. E. Nielsen. 1993. PNA
hybridizes to complementary oligonucleotides obeying the Watson-Crick
hydrogen-bonding rules. Nature 365:566–68.
Eschenmoser, A. 1997. Towards a chemical etiology of nucleic acid structure.
Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere 27:535–53.
———. 1999. Chemical etiology of nucleic acid structure. Science 284:2118–24.
Ferris, J. P. 1987. Prebiotic synthesis: Problems and challenges. In Evolution of
catalytic function, Cold Spring Harbor symposia on quantitative biology
LII, 65–83. Cold Spring Harbor, N. Y.: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Press.
———. 1998. Catalyzed RNA synthesis for the RNA world. In Molecular
origins of life: Assembling pieces of the puzzle, ed. A. Brack, 255–68.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ferris, J. P., A. R. Hill, Jr., R. Liu, and L. E. Orgel. 1996. Synthesis of long pre-
biotic oligomers on mineral surfaces. Nature 381:59–61.
Guerrier-Takada, C., K. Gardiner, T. Marsh, N. Pace, and S. Altman. 1983. The
RNA moiety of ribonuclease P is the catalytic subunit of the enzyme. Cell
35:849–57.
156 Leslie E. Orgel

Howard, F. B., J. Frazier, M. F. Singer, and H. Miles. 1966. Helix formation

between polyribonucleotides and purines, purine nucleosides and
nucleotides. II. Journal of Molecular Biology 16:415–39.
Huang, W. M., and P. O. P. Ts’o. 1966. Physicochemical basis of the recognition
process in nucleic acid interactions. I. Interactions of polyuridylic acid and
nucleosides. Journal of Molecular Biology 16:523–43.
Inoue, T., and L. E. Orgel. 1982. Oligomerization of (guanosine 5-phosphor)-
2-methylimidazolide on poly(C). Journal of Molecular Biology 162:201–17.
In The RNA World. The nature of modern RNA suggests a prebiotic RNA,
ed. R. G. Gesteland, T. R. Cech, and J. F. Atkins, 49–77. Cold Spring Harbor,
N. Y.: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.
Joyce, G. F., and L. E. Orgel. 1999. Prospects for understanding the origin of
the RNA world. In The RNA World. The nature of modern RNA suggests
a prebiotic RNA, ed. R. G. Gesteland, T. R. Cech, and J. F. Atkins, 49–77.
Cold Spring Harbor, N. Y.: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.
Joyce, G. F., G. M. Visser, C. A. A. van Boeckel, J. H. van Boom, L. E. Orgel, and
J. van Westrenen. 1984. Chiral selection in poly(C)-directed synthesis of
oligo(G). Nature 310:602–4.
Katz, L., K. Tomitu, and A. Rich. 1965. The molecular structure of the crys-
talline complex ethyladenine: Methyl-bromouracil. Journal of Molecular
Biology 13:340–50.
Kauffman, S. A. 1986. Autocatalytic sets of proteins. Journal of Theoretical
Biology 119:1–24.
Koppitz, M., P. E. Nielsen, and L. E. Orgel. 1998. Formation of oligonucleotide-
PNA-chimeras by template-directed ligation. Journal of the American
Chemical Society 120:4563–69.
Kruger, K., P. J. Grabowski, A. J. Zaug, J. Sands, D. E. Gottschling, and T. H. R.
Cech. 1982. Self-splicing RNA: Autoexcision and autocyclization of the
ribosomal RNA intervening sequence of Tetrahymena. Cell 31:147–57.
Miller, S. L. 1953. A production of amino acids and possible primate earth
conditions. Science 117:528–29.
Müller, D., S. Pitsch, A. Kittaka, E. Wagner, C. E. Wintner, and A. Eschenmoser.
1990. Chemie von a-Aminonitrilen. Aldomerisierung von Glycolaldehyd-
phosphat zu racemischen Hexose-2,4,6-triphosphaten und (in Gegenwart von
Formaldehyd) racemischen Pentose-2,4-diphosphaten: rac-Allose-2,4,6-
triphosphat und rac-Ribose-2,4-diphosphat sind die Reaktionshauptprodukte.
Helvetica Chimica Acta 73:1410–68.
Orgel, L. E. 1968. Evolution of the genetic apparatus. Journal of Molecular
Biology 38:381–93.
———. 1998. The origin of life—a review of facts and speculations. Trends in
Biochemical Sciences 23:491–95.
Oró, J., and A. P. Kimball. 1960. Synthesis of adenine from ammonium
cyanide. Biochimica et Biophysica Research Communications 2:407–12.
Rohatgi, R., D. P. Bartel, and J. W. Szostak. 1996. Kinetic and mechanistic
analysis of nonenzymatic, template-directed oligoribonucleotide ligation.
Journal of the American Chemical Society 118:3332–39.
The Origin of Biological Information 157

Schmidt, J. G., L. Christensen, P. E. Nielsen, and L. E. Orgel. 1997. Information

transfer from DNA to peptide nucleic acids by template-directed syntheses.
Nucleic Acids Research 25:4792–96.
Schmidt, J. G., P. E. Nielsen, and L. E. Orgel. 1997. Information transfer from
peptide nucleic acids to RNA by template-directed syntheses. Nucleic Acids
Research 25:4797–4802.
Wächtershäuser, G. 1988. Before enzymes and templates: Theory of surface
metabolism. Microbiological Reviews 52:452–84.
Woese, C. R. 1967. The Genetic Code. New York: Harper.
chapter 6

When Did Life Begin?

j. w i l l i a m s c h o p f

introduction
We have a fairly clear picture of how life began. Sketched in broad
strokes, a six-part scenario is plausible: (1) the genesis in distant stars
of the chemical elements crucial to life; (2) the formation of the Solar
System and accretion of planet Earth; (3) the nonbiologic buildup in
Earth’s oceans of small, simple, organic monomers; (4) the linkage of
these monomers into larger, more complicated, polymeric organics; (5)
the rise of information-containing polymers; (6) the aggregation and
assembly of living cells.
But if the broad strokes are clear, the details are not. We cannot, for
example, estimate the likelihood of these steps. Was the origin of life
rapid and “easy”—an all but inevitable byproduct of planetary forma-
tion? Or, was it slow and “difficult”—a tortuous process that hinged
on a highly improbable series of vanishingly unlikely chance events? It’s
entertaining to ponder such questions; but, lacking detailed knowledge,
we cannot expect firm answers, even for a planet such as our own. And
whether life’s origin was likely or not, solving that puzzle would tell us
nothing about what the first life forms were or when they actually arose.
Even if we cannot reason from the plausible how of life’s beginnings
to the likely what and when, we have other arrows in our quiver. Three
lines of evidence can help us answer these key questions. First, we can
construct a “family tree” that shows the genealogical relations among

158
When Did Life Begin? 159

all organisms living today. Using that tree to determine which biologic
traits date from near life’s beginnings, we can gain insight into what
the earliest life forms may have been like. Second, we can use the an-
cient fossil record of minute cellular organisms and their chemical sig-
natures left in rocks. Thus, we can trace life’s roots back though time
to show what kinds of organisms were present early in Earth history
and set a firm date on how long life has existed. Third, we can read
the history of our planet’s formation from the scarred and cratered sur-
face of its Moon, thus shedding light on when Earth first became a
habitable abode. Taken together, the evidence drawn from such meth-
ods reveals that life evolved very rapidly and remarkably early.

evidence from living organisms

The Basics of Life

All living systems are made up of a small number of rather simple

chemical ingredients. The most abundant and essential of these is com-
mon water (H2O), the medium that makes up the bulk of every living
system—95% of a lettuce leaf, 75% of a bacterial cell. This watery
milieu harks back to life’s beginnings. Whether life began in oceans,
lakes, or shallow lagoons, it unquestionably got started in aqueous en-
virons, a heritage carried over to the watery sap, the cytosol, of living
cells where the chemistry of life takes place. And water is not the only
ingredient universal to life. More than 99.9% of the substance of each
living system consists of but four chemical elements—carbon, hydro-
gen, oxygen, and nitrogen (CHON)—elements that are among the most
abundant in the cosmos. Because atoms of CHON are able to combine
with one another to form small, sturdy molecules such as methane
(CH4), carbon dioxide (CO2), and ammonia (NH3), or to pair with
atoms of their own kind as in gaseous oxygen (O2), hydrogen (H2),
and nitrogen (N2 )—and because all of the compounds thus formed dis-
solve readily in H2O (another linked pair of the prime four)—the chem-
istry of all of life, biochemistry, is largely the chemistry of CHON.
At an organismal level, life displays remarkable variety—bacteria,
whales, palm trees, ants—a host of forms so different one from an-
other that we can barely imagine commonalities among them. But at
a chemical level, all organisms are nearly identical. The atoms of life
are always present in the same suite of small building-block molecules
or monomers—just three dozen or so of the same amino acids, sugars,
purines, pyrimidines, and the like. And in all life, these monomers are
160 J. William Schopf

linked to form the same few kinds of large polymers, the proteins,
carbohydrates, and nucleic acids so important to the workings of life.
The sameness carries over to metabolism as well, since energy to power
life is produced in just a few relatively simple and closely related ways.
All this sameness derives from a single evolutionary tree.
The shared basics of life demonstrate that all living systems—all
organisms over all of time—trace their roots to the same parent cell
line. The “remarkable variety” we see in the living world reflects evo-
lutionary modifications of but a single biologic blueprint.

The Universal Tree of Life

A powerful new technique makes it possible to construct a genealogi-

cal family tree that reveals not only the relatedness of seemingly dis-
parate organisms (bacteria, whales, palm trees, ants) but also their
relatedness to the original parent cell line. This technique tests a par-
ticular biochemical present in the organisms sampled, but cannot be
used on fossils (the key molecule is rapidly destroyed, even under mild
conditions of geologic preservation). But because the biochemical tested
is present in every living organism, the technique yields a Universal
Tree of Life. This branching treelike diagram shows the evolutionary
relations among all organisms living today. This new approach is pos-
sible for the following reasons.

1. Every organism manufactures proteins (polymers made up of

amino acids, such as the enzymes that speed metabolism),
which are always made in cells on the surfaces of tiny, ball-
shaped protein factories called ribosomes.
2. The ribosomal protein factories are mostly made of various
kinds of ribonucleic acid (RNA), long stringlike polymers
having a sugar–phosphate backbone and a riblike array of
four nitrogen-containing monomers: two purines (adenine and
guanine) and two pyrimidines (cytosine and uracil).
3. Mutations (changes in the chemistry of an organism’s chromo-
somal genes) can alter the makeup and shift the order of the
purines and pyrimidines in ribosomal ribonucleic acid (rRNA).
4. Members of biologic groups closely related by evolution have
similar genes; hence the rRNAs of closely related organisms
are similar, while the rRNAs of more distantly related organ-
isms are dissimilar.
When Did Life Begin? 161

Figure 6.1. The Universal Tree of Life based on 16S ribosomal RNA.

Comparison of the patterns of distribution of purines and pyrim-

idines in the rRNAs in living members of the major groups of life gives
a clear index of how closely or distantly related the organisms in them
are. The resulting Universal Tree (shown in figure 6.1, based on a kind
of rRNA known as 16S), constructed so the length of each branch cor-
responds to the number of changes in the pattern that happened since
the branch spouted from its nearest neighbor, shows four main facts.

1. Although plants and animals are the most familiar forms of

life, they comprise just two of more than 20 major evolution-
ary branches.
2. The tree is overwhelmingly composed of microscopic organ-
isms: Of the many branches, only three (plants, animals, and
fungi) contain forms large enough to see with the naked eye,
and each of these contains microscopic forms as well.
3. Every present-day organism belongs to one of three super-
kingdom-like clans known as domains (figure 6.2): Bacteria—
a domain comprising non-nucleated small-celled life forms,
including all the common bacteria and the cyanobacteria
(biochemically advanced microorganisms that give off oxygen
as a byproduct of photosynthesis); Archaea—a domain com-
prising non-nucleated microbes, the archaeans, including
many kinds of extremophiles (microorganisms able to thrive
162 J. William Schopf

Figure 6.2. The three domains of life shown by the Universal Tree.

in exceedingly acidic high-temperature settings) and

methanogens (microbes that give off methane gas as a prod-
uct of metabolism); and Eucarya—the domain comprising
eukaryotes (such as plants and animals), higher organisms
having relatively large cells in which chromosomes are pack-
aged in a saclike nucleus.
4. Eukaryotes are more closely related to archaeans than to bac-
teria, and the root of the Universal Tree—a lineage of life
referred to as the Last Common Ancestor—lies between the
Bacteria and the Archaea.

The branching pattern of the Universal Tree agrees fairly well with
the known fossil record—Bacteria and Archaea early, Eucarya much later.
But rRNA trees cannot show precisely when the various branches
sprouted. Such trees are based on organisms living today; if they clocked
evolution accurately, all the branches would be exactly the same length,
their branchtips corresponding to the present day. But as shown in fig-
ure 6.1, this is not so. The branches are decidedly of differing lengths—
some long, others short—because the different branches of life evolved
at different rates. The relatively long-branched groups (for example, green
non-sulfur bacteria and flavobacteria) evolved more rapidly, whereas lin-
eages having shorter branches (several in the Archaea and eukaryotic
plants, animals, and fungi) evolved more slowly.
When Did Life Begin? 163

The Last Common Ancestor

Biologic evolution is among the most conservative and economical

processes imaginable. Instead of inventing new kinds of molecules, com-
plicated biochemical systems, or novel tissues and organs, it builds bit
by bit on what already exists. Moreover, because bits can be added
only to what already exists, and because biochemical systems comprise
many intricately interlinked pieces, any particular full-blown system
can arise only once. Why the process operates this way is easy to un-
derstand. Cells are like sophisticated timepieces whose working parts
depend on one another in complicated ways. Big changes are likely to
destroy the delicate balance. But small changes can be tolerated—
generally, the more minor, the better. Over enormous spans of time,
such small changes add up; but were it not for the vastness of geologic
time, the effects would be all but imperceptible.
Because of the way evolution works, the genealogical relations shown
by the Universal Tree can be used to explore the nature of life’s Last
Common Ancestor (LCA)—the plexus of primitive early-evolved mi-
crobes that existed before the rise of superkingdom-like domains—even
though all members of this ancient rootstock are long extinct. Since any
complete biochemical system is far too elaborate to have evolved more
than once in the history of life, it is safe to assume that microbes of
the primal LCA cell line had the same traits that characterize all its
present-day descendants. In other words, all the key components shared
by every member of the three domains must have been present in LCA
microbes: genes (DNA), proteins (including enzymes), and protein facto-
ries (ribosomes and RNA), together with the ways to make energy
(metabolic pathways), store energy (ATP, adenosine triphosphate), repair
mutations and deformed enzymes (repair mechanisms and chaperonin
proteins), and divide and reproduce (by special genome-replicating
enzymes). The basic workings of life—from genetics to the manufac-
ture of proteins, from metabolism to the way cells divide—were in place
before the ancient rootstock gave rise to present-day domains.
A second way to explore the nature of the LCA lineage is to con-
sider traits that may be special to particularly primitive microbes. One
such trait stands out (figure 6.3). The deepest branches of the Universal
Tree are populated by thermophiles, heat-loving microbes able to thrive
at high temperatures, many above the boiling point of water (possible
only because the microbes live at deep-sea volcanic vents where the
pressure of the overlying ocean keeps water from turning to steam).
164 J. William Schopf

Figure 6.3. Heat-loving microbes, both bacteria (1) and archaeans

(2 and 3), populate the deepest branches of the Universal Tree.

The one-to-one match between exceptional tolerance to high tempera-

ture and extraordinary primitiveness, both in the Bacteria and the
Archaea, suggests that the LCA rootstock was composed, entirely or
in part, of heat-loving microbes. But it does not follow, as some work-
ers have argued, that life itself originated at high temperatures near
deep-sea vents. Even if the ancient LCA lineage was made up exclu-
sively of heat-loving microbes, these thermophiles must have been bio-
chemically complex, thoroughly adaptable, and highly evolved. In many
respects, then, such microorganisms were practically “modern” and
When Did Life Begin? 165

Figure 6.4. The Last Common Ancestor, the rootstock of the

Universal Tree that probably included heat-loving microbes,
was only distantly related to the earliest forms of life.

hence too distant from life’s beginnings to reveal how living systems
got started (figure 6.4).

Strengths and Weaknesses of the Universal Tree

The rRNA Universal Tree offers a new way to trace the course of bio-
logic evolution. Truly universal, it applies to every kind of present-day
organism over the entire globe. It demonstrates how simple the living
world actually is, comprising three large superkingdom-like groupings
instead of a multitude of fundamentally different forms. It shows the
166 J. William Schopf

unity of life, all organisms belonging to a single evolutionary tree, all

descending from the same primal rootstock, all basically alike. And it
reveals the key underpinnings of evolution itself, the marked conser-
vatism and economy of process.
But the Universal Tree is not a panacea. Sampling only present-day
biologic groups, it neglects the vast majority (more than 99%) of species
that have existed over life’s long history. It gives a clear view of the
overall branching pattern, but it gives no date for when the tree took
root or when its many branches sprouted. And because it traces life’s
roots only to the Last Common Ancestor, when life was already highly
evolved, the Universal Tree sheds no light on how life began.

evidence from the rock record

To ferret out the what and when of life’s beginnings, we must turn to
the geologic record, a source of direct evidence far closer to the events
in question than the living organism–based Universal Tree.
All of geologic time, the total history of the Earth, is divided into
two great eons. The older of these, the Precambrian Eon, extends from
the planet’s formation, about 4,500 million years (Ma) ago, to the
appearance of fossils of hard-shelled animals (trilobites and mollusks)
about 550 Ma ago. The younger and shorter eon, the Phanerozoic, spans
the most recent 550 Ma and the familiar evolutionary progression: from
seaweeds to marsh plants and land plants (with seeds and flowers); from
animals without backbones to fish and land-dwelling vertebrates, then
to birds and mammals. When we think of ancient life, we usually think
of lobster-like trilobites, dinosaurs, or saber-toothed cats, the large fos-
sils of the Phanerozoic. But the rocks of this younger eon actually record
only a brief late chapter—the most recent one-eighth—of a very much
longer evolutionary story. This story begins early in Precambrian time
and involves microbes rather than plants and animals, that is, bacteria
and archaeans rather than eukaryotes. Obviously, our search for the old-
est records of life must focus on rocks of the Precambrian and, of these,
on rocks dating from more than 3,000 million years ago.
From its beginnings in the early 1800s, scientific study of the
Phanerozoic history of life has concentrated on fossils—their body
forms, life histories, habitats, evolutionary relations, and spread in time
and space. It was only in the 1960s, after more than a century of un-
rewarded search, that a series of breakthrough discoveries extended
such studies into the Precambrian. While this long-delayed progress met
When Did Life Begin? 167

with resounding success—and a stunning sevenfold increase in the doc-

umented antiquity of life—investigation of the minute life forms of the
Precambrian raises new challenges, demanding an approach apprecia-
bly broader than that typical of traditional fossil-hunting.
Almost all Phanerozoic fossils belong to groups living today, so we
rarely ask questions about their basic living processes, their physiology
and metabolism. Even extinct forms are immune; no one wonders
whether the earliest small land plants were capable of photosynthesis or
whether dinosaurs were oxygen-breathing. Yet in the Precambrian, such
questions are pivotal. Much of early evolution hinged on the develop-
ment of new physiological capabilities—the origin of photosynthesis, for
example, or of oxygen-breathing aerobic respiration. But for Precambrian
microbes, the existence of such capabilities is often difficult to show by
classical fossil-centered techniques, largely because microorganisms of the
same size and shape can differ markedly in physiology and metabolism.
The emergent discipline of paleobiology has begun to answer the fresh
questions raised by Precambrian life. This broad new science, which
seeks evidence of the living processes of ancient life, goes beyond the
fossil-focused approach. One of the key techniques now used routinely
in paleobiologic studies of the Precambrian is isotopic geochemistry, a
potent tool used to track the geologic history of photosynthesis.

Isotopic Evidence of Photosynthesis

Isotopes are forms of an element that differ slightly in atomic mass but
have almost the same chemical behavior. Some isotopes decay radio-
actively; others are immutable. Carbon has isotopes of both kinds.
Carbon-14 (14C) decays so rapidly that after 60,000 years or so, it be-
comes undetectable (limiting the use of carbon-14 dating to prehistoric
remains younger than this age). In addition, carbon has two immutable
isotopes: the common 12C and the slightly heavier 13C. Preserved in sed-
imentary rocks, these can be traced back through geologic time to pro-
vide evidence of ancient photosynthetic life.
Photosynthesis is the life-sustaining biologic process characteristic of
land plants, seaweeds, and some microbes (cyanobacteria and various
kinds of photosynthetic bacteria). In this process the energy of sunlight
is used to link molecules of carbon dioxide (CO2) to atoms of hydro-
gen to form glucose sugar (C6H12O6 )—a critical biochemical because
its breakdown provides C, H, and O for use in building other bio-
chemicals while fueling further photosynthetic growth. The isotopic
168 J. William Schopf

Figure 6.5. Microbial photosynthesis partitions carbon isotopes between

limestone and photosynthetic bacteria and cyanobacteria.

makeup of the glucose formed, and hence of the entire organism, is

controlled by the mix of isotopes in the gases and simple nutrients taken
in from the environment. For the stable isotopes of carbon, this is a
mixture of two kinds of carbon dioxide: 12CO2 and 13CO2.
In the first step of photosynthesis, a special enzyme captures CO2 and
brings it together with hydrogen to produce a small CHO-containing
compound, which is converted to glucose by further steps. But 12CO2
and 13CO2 have different weights so they are ensnared by the enzyme
with different ease. Molecules of the two types of carbon dioxide bounce
about in the cell sap like tiny ping-pong balls—the lighter 12CO2 rap-
idly, the heavier 13CO2 more slowly. The lighter molecules hit the en-
zyme more frequently, so they are caught and bound into the initial
product more often, creating a disparity that extends to glucose, the
source of carbon for all other organic compounds of the organism. As
a result of this enzyme-guided process, the mix of atoms in the organic
matter of photosynthesizers contains more 12C, and correspondingly less
13
C, than the mixture in the atmospheric CO2.
Carbon dioxide is also captured in minerals. When CO2 dissolves
in seawater, it is converted into bicarbonate (HCO3). Bicarbonate then
combines with dissolved calcium (Ca2) to make mineral grains of cal-
cium carbonate (CaCO3), which rain down onto the ocean floor to
When Did Life Begin? 169

Figure 6.6. The carbon isotopic signature of photosynthesis extends to

3,500 Ma ago.

form limestone. This process separates the stable isotopes of carbon,

but the effect is the opposite of that produced by photosynthesis—the
isotopic mix in limestone contains less 12C, and more 13C, than the
mixture in the CO2 of the atmosphere.
Compared with atmospheric CO2, photosynthetic microbes (like all
photosynthesizers) are enriched in 12C, whereas limestones are depleted
(figure 6.5). The differences are small but distinct, a few percent or less,
measured by mass spectrometry in parts per thousand (permil, ‰). For
purposes of comparison, measurements in laboratories worldwide are
calibrated against a standard specimen (the PDB limestone) whose as-
signed value is 0.0‰. Differences from this standard are expressed as
13CPDB values (in which  denotes difference). By this yardstick, sam-
ples containing relatively more of the heavier 13C have positive values
and those having more 12C are negative.
The distribution of carbon isotopes leaves a telltale imprint in the
rock record that can be used to track photosynthesis through geologic
time. Compared to the CO2 carbon source, photosynthetic microbes
are enriched in the lighter isotope, generally by about 18‰, and
limestones are depleted by 7‰ (figure 6.5). The two diverge by about
25‰, a clear difference that can be measured easily in geologic sam-
ples. In fact, as shown in figure 6.6, this signature of photosynthesis
can be traced far into the geologic past. From the present back to
170 J. William Schopf

3,500 Ma ago, we see a steady clustering of  CPDB values, with

13

fossil organic matter hovering near 25‰ and ancient limestones near
0‰. And evidence suggests that this record may extend even further.
For example, crystalline graphite from 3,800-Ma–old rocks of south-
western Greenland (sediments of the Isua Supracrustal Group, the old-
est strata known in the geologic record) has an isotopic composition
that hints at the presence of photosynthesis.
From the evidence of carbon isotopes, we can see that the bio-
chemically complicated process of photosynthesis had already evolved
as early as 3,500 Ma ago. Moreover, the story read from carbon iso-
topes is backed by fossils—minute, cellularly preserved members of the
bacterial domain that similarly date from about 3,500 Ma ago.

Fossil Evidence of Ancient Microbes

As a result of ordinary geologic processes, all rock units have a limited

lifetime. Typically, they are deposited, then uplifted in massive moun-
tains, where they are eroded by wind and rain. Weathered away bit by
bit, their mineral grains are carried by streams and rivers until they are
finally laid down as part of some newly forming rock unit. Because of
this geologic recycling, the hunt for records of ancient life, in the form
of telltale isotopic signatures or in cellularly preserved fossils, becomes
more and more chancy as the search moves into ever-older terrains.
Rocks surviving to the present become increasingly rare as the rock
record gradually peters out (figure 6.7); moreover, the few truly ancient
units that do survive are often so severely pressure-cooked that evidence
of life is obliterated or blurred beyond recognition. The severely heated
rocks of the Isua Sequence of Greenland are a case in point. Although
it is certainly imaginable that life existed 3,800 Ma ago when these rocks
were laid down, nothing remains today except chemical hints—and only
hints—of its possible presence.
In addition to the rocks of southwestern Greenland, we know of only
two exceptionally ancient terrains, both made up of strata 3,000 to
3,500 Ma old. One is a sequence of rocks in eastern South Africa known
as the Swaziland Supergroup. This group forms the hills and valleys of
the Barberton Mountain Land in and near the kingdom of Swaziland.
The other, a thick pile of volcanic and sedimentary rocks named the
Pilbara Supergroup, crops out as ridges, buttes, and broad domical hills
west of the Great Sandy Desert near the northwestern corner of Western
Australia. Both terrains have yielded convincing fossils and carbon
When Did Life Begin? 171

Figure 6.7. Comparison of the distributions in time of known Precambrian

microbial fossils and rock units that have survived to the present. The
checkmarks in the central columns show the spread in time of thousands of
fossil occurrences known from Precambrian rocks. Each check signifies that
microbes of the kind listed have been found in the 50-Ma-long interval
indicated.

isotopes indicating photosynthesis, but the less pressure-cooked

Australian rocks contain more abundant, better preserved records of life.
The best preserved and oldest of the fossils are minute, threadlike
microbes (figure 6.8). Eleven kinds of these microbes have been found
entombed in a dark gray, carbon-rich rock unit known as the Apex
chert, which weathers out as ledges and large angular blocks in low
hills near the one-horse town of Marble Bar. (This tiny town is about
150 km southeast of Port Hedland, the coastal settlement at the north-
western edge of Australia that serves as the hub of the Pilbara region.)
The fossil-bearing bed was laid down along the margin of a narrow
seaway flanked by towering volcanoes that episodically blanketed the
172 J. William Schopf

Figure 6.8. The oldest fossils known, cyanobacterium-like filamentous mi-

crobes shown in thin slices of the nearly 3,500-Ma–old Apex chert of north-
western Western Australia. The magnification of (D, E, I, and J) is shown by
the scale in (E); the magnification of all other parts is shown by the scale in
(A). (A–E) Primaevifilum amoenum; (F–J) Primaevifilum conicoterminatum;
arrows in (I) point to conical end cells.

seafloor with massive sheets of lava. Sandwiched between two of these

volcanic flows, each precisely dated, the fossiliferous horizon is 3,465
 5 Ma old, nearly three-quarters the age of the Earth.
Even though the Pilbara rocks comprise the least pressure-cooked
exceptionally ancient geologic sequence known to science, the Apex
fossils are scrappy, hard to find, and difficult to study. They are abun-
dant, but they are also mangled, shredded, and charred. Tiny bits and
pieces are common, but generally nondescript; short two- or three-celled
When Did Life Begin? 173

fragments are rare and easy to overlook; many-celled specimens are

few and far between; and truly well preserved fossils are nonexistent.
But given their immense age—and their fragile makeup and their minute
size—it is remarkable that they have survived at all. Like the preserved
growth rings of a fossil log, the Apex microbes are petrified, composed
of coaly remnants of their original cell walls, the living juices leached
away long ago and the cells filled in with mineral. Almost nothing is
left to establish their identity except the size, shape, and boxcar-like
arrangement of their simple filament-forming cells. But these clues,
gathered from 2,000 cells in hundreds of examples of 11 kinds of fos-
sils, reveal how the cells divided and multiplied. And they offer good
reasons for identifying these microbes as members of the bacterial do-
main, most likely cyanobacteria and various kinds of noncyanobacte-
rial bacteria.
Several of the Apex species seem almost indistinguishable from liv-
ing cyanobacteria of the taxonomic family Oscillatoriaceae, microbes
that are common today in oceans, lakes, and forest soils worldwide.
The existence very early in the Precambrian of this particular group of
cyanobacteria fits with rRNA trees, which show them to be one of the
most primitive kinds of cyanobacteria living today. It also fits with the
abundant presence of members of this group in the more recent
Precambrian fossil record (figure 6.7) where, like the Apex fossils, their
petrified threadlike filaments are the chief components of biologically
diverse shallow-water microbial communities. But other fossils of the
Apex assemblage more closely resemble noncyanobacterial bacteria.
Thus, the signature of photosynthesis recorded in the Apex organic
matter may reflect the presence of both kinds—cyanobacteria and their
close relatives, photosynthetic bacteria.
Cemented to rocks and boulders on the seaway floor by a thick layer
of sticky mucilage, the Apex community was protected by overlying
waters from lethal UV light that, in the absence of an oxygen-rich (and,
hence, of an ozone-rich) atmosphere, flooded the surface of the early
Earth. Thus cosseted, it was a biologically diverse microbial menagerie.
This oldest known fossiliferous deposit gives but a scanty glimpse of
the ancient living world; but the preservation, even in a single fossil
horizon, of such a varied suite of microbes is a clear indicator that a
profusion of microorganisms already existed at this very early stage in
Earth’s history. By 3,500 Ma ago, diverse microbes, many like those
living today, were already thriving, not only in what is now Western
Australia but in habitable settings across the globe.
174 J. William Schopf

Strengths and Weaknesses of Isotopes and Fossils

Direct evidence from the geologic record—both of carbon isotopic sig-

natures and cellularly preserved fossils—establishes beyond doubt the
great antiquity of life. Linked to the present by a continuous chain of
paleobiologic evidence (figure 6.7), life on Earth dates from at least 3,500
Ma ago. Only a billion or so years after Earth’s formation its surface
swarmed with living systems. This microbial zoo evidently included
cyanobacteria—microorganisms notable as the biochemically most
advanced; the morphologically, physiologically, and ecologically most var-
ied; and, in cell size, by far the largest members of the bacterial domain.
Clearly, life evolved far and fast very early in the history of the planet.
But direct evidence from the rock record can take us only part of
the way toward unraveling the mysteries of life’s beginnings. Truly
ancient rocks are few and they have mostly been subjected to evidence-
destroying pressure-cooking. Moreover, the known rock record ex-
tends back no further than 3,800 Ma ago, leaving a huge gap of un-
documented Earth history because the planet formed some 700 million
years earlier. The oldest fossils known are varied and highly evolved,
much too advanced to shed light on what the earliest life forms were
like. And, in any case, the oldest fossils represent no more than the
oldest detected cellular life, not its actual earliest presence. Evidence
from the rock record sets a minimum age for life’s existence, but it
does not and cannot provide a full answer to the what and when of
life’s beginnings.

when was earth ready for life?

The paleobiologic record tells us that life arose earlier than 3,500 Ma
ago, but just how much earlier is an open question. Graphite in the
3,800-Ma–old Isua rocks of Greenland hints that life may have existed
then but is too altered by heat and pressure to prove that life was
present. And rocks are totally unknown from the earlier 700 million
years of Earth’s existence—there is no surviving earthly evidence to
reckon with.
What happened during the embryonic stages of Earth history, the
hundreds of millions of years missing from the geologic record? The Moon
holds this answer. Too small to hold an atmosphere or ocean, the Moon
does not have huge continents or massive mountain chains. There is
no wind, it never rains, and rocks don’t weather as they do on Earth.
When Did Life Begin? 175

Figure 6.9. The common ancestor of life today could have originated only
after the last great planet-sterilizing meteoritic impact.

Though churned by meteorites over the ages, the otherwise pristine

lunar surface retains a record of its youth, a catastrophic epoch indelibly
inscribed in the scarred and cratered moonscape.
During the segment missing from our planet’s geology, the Moon,
the Earth, and other bodies of the Solar System were in the final stages
of formation, sweeping up huge chunks of rocky debris encountered in
their orbits. They were bombarded and blasted by in-falling meteors.
And because the Earth is so much larger than the Moon, the barrage
here was much greater. The heat of the bombarding fragments melted
out the Earth’s iron core, which settled to the center of the forming
planet. Lighter “ rockbergs” floated on its seething molten surface,
beginning to congeal into a solid rocky rind about 4,300 Ma ago. So
intense was the bombardment and so enormous the in-falling meteors
that the Earth’s oceans repeatedly boiled away. Even a medium-sized
impactor 5 km across would have turned the oceans to steam, shroud-
ing the planet in a dense, lightning-charged, pitch-black cloud bank
that would have lasted thousands of years before it rained out to form
the oceans again. Had any life gained a foothold in this hellish setting,
it would have been wiped out as the entire planet was sterilized over
and over again (figure 6.9).
Catastrophic collisions have happened throughout the history of our
planet (and are sure to happen again). Sixty-five million years ago a
rocky mass 10 km wide smashed into the Yucatán Peninsula, bringing
tidal waves, wildfires, choking smoke, and flaming ashes that decimated
the living world and helped wipe out the dinosaurs. In 1908, a much
176 J. William Schopf

smaller body, 70 meters across, blew up over Tunguska, Siberia. The

20-megaton blast ignited the clothes of a man some 100 km away,
annihilated herds of reindeer, and flattened thousands of acres of dense-
packed forest. Every 100,000 years or so, Earth is hit by a kilometer-
sized meteorite that throws enough debris into the atmosphere to block
out the sun, plunging the world into a years-long night, nature’s equiv-
alent of nuclear winter.
But even such terrifying events pale to insignificance in comparison
with the deadly firestorm that rained onto the primal Earth for hun-
dreds of millions of years. The sterilizing devastation kept on until
about 3,900 Ma ago when the last of the huge orbiting chunks was
swept away. Living systems may have originated and been killed off
many times during earlier planetary history—there is no way to tell.
But life as we know it could come into being only after 3,900 Ma ago,
and a scant 400 Ma later, it was flourishing and widespread. How did
life advance so far, so fast?

So Far, So Fast, So Early?

We have no fossils that testify to evolution’s rapid progress from 3,900

to 3,500 Ma ago. But we have other cards up our sleeve. Perhaps the
most promising is the fossil record of the most recent 400 million years,
an especially well-studied chapter in life’s history. This record should
give us a good reading of how much evolution can happen in a rela-
tively short period of geologic time.
What was life’s lot during the most recent 400 million years? First,
primitive land plants appeared, tiny twigs less than a centimeter high.
From these paltry beginnings, plants soon evolved, producing lush low-
land vegetation, the giant scale-trees of the Coal Swamp Floras, dense
highland forests, and, eventually, rich grasslands and all the trees,
shrubs, and flowering plants of the modern world. While this was go-
ing on, all animal life on land evolved as well—first, amphibians such
as salamanders and frogs; then a multitude of reptiles, most notably
the dinosaurs and their kin, including the feathered dinosaurians we
call birds; and, finally, warm-blooded hairy mammals, including pri-
mates such as ourselves. Clearly, an enormous amount of evolution can
be squeezed into a scant 400 million years.
But the impressive feats of recent geologic time may not be a fair test
of the speed of early evolutionary advance. By 400 Ma ago, life had
long been in place; yet if organisms existed 3,900 Ma ago, they were
When Did Life Begin? 177

Figure 6.10. Gene copying speeded early evolution by adding new biochemi-
cal functions without affecting those already in place. In the upper panel,
Gene 1 contains the genetic information responsible for formation of
Enzyme 1, a matchmaker that links molecules A and B to make compound
AB. Gene 1 is then copied, and one of the two identical versions is mutated
to Gene 2, which, as shown in the lower panel, is responsible for formation
of Enzyme 2, a new matchmaker that links AB to molecule C to form com-
pound ABC. By mutation of a copied gene, a new function has evolved
while the original function has been retained.

primitive and simple. How could fledgling life have evolved so far and
fast? The mechanisms of early evolution appear to hold the key. The
hallmark of the evolutionary process is its conservatism and economy,
its incredibly successful strategy of building, bit by bit, on what already
exists. A prize way to accomplish this—gene copying—came into be-
ing early in life’s history. As long as one copy of a gene functions, the
extras can be mutated, sometimes to genes that work even better or do
new tricks (figure 6.10). And because new genes don’t have to be made
from scratch, this is a surefire mechanism for speedy evolution. The ad-
vent of the various mechanisms of physiology and metabolism followed
178 J. William Schopf

a similar pattern. New ways were invented early to meet life’s demand
for CHON and cellular energy; but instead of concocting totally novel
schemes to do these jobs, evolution took shortcuts by recasting and
reusing bits and pieces of similar processes already in place. Gene xe-
roxing and biochemical remodeling—both examples of the conservatism
and economy of the evolutionary process—played major roles in speed-
ing life to its early advance.

the WHAT and WHEN of life’s beginnings

Although we have made enormous progress toward unraveling the mys-
teries associated with the origin of life, hard evidence of the what of
life’s beginnings remains elusive. Neither indirect evidence from mod-
ern organisms (the Universal Tree) nor direct evidence from the rock
record (the findings of paleobiology) can take us more than part way
toward defining the makeup of the earliest life forms. If a firm answer
is to be found, it most likely will be detected in the molecular biology
of living microbes. And we have just begun to unearth this treasure-
trove of promising clues.
The when of life’s beginnings can be answered more fully, though
not yet precisely. Life’s origin dates certainly from before 3,500 Ma ago
(as shown by paleobiology), probably from after 3,900 Ma ago (and
the last of the planet-sterilizing impact events), and perhaps from as
early as 3,800 Ma ago (as hinted by the Isua graphite). And this range
is likely to be narrowed. It would be a great surprise if fossils more an-
cient than the oldest now known are not discovered, and perhaps
soon—an allout search of the ancient rock record is only now begin-
ning, its potential barely tapped.

further reading
Groves, D. I., J. S. R. Dunlop, and R. Buick. 1981. An early habitat of life.
Scientific American 245:64–73.
Islas, S., A. Becerra, J. I. Leguina, and A. Lazcano. 1998. Early metabolic evo-
lution: Insights from comparative cellular genomics. In Exobiology: Matter,
energy, and information in the origin and evolution of life in the Universe,
ed. J. Chela-Flores and F. Raulin, 167–74. Amsterdam: Kluwer.
Iwabe, N., K. Kuma, M. Hasegawa, S. Osawa, and T. Miyata. 1989. Evolu-
tionary relationships of archaebacteria, eubacteria, and eukaryotes inferred
from phylogenetic trees of duplicated genes. Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences USA 86:9355–59.
When Did Life Begin? 179

Lazcano, A. 1995. Cellular evolution during the early Archean: What hap-
pened between the progenote and the cenancestor? Microbiologia SEM
11:1–13.
Lazcano, A. and P. Forterre, eds. 1999. Special Issue: The Last Common
Ancestor and beyond. Journal of Molecular Evolution 49:411–540.
Lazcano, A., G. E. Fox, and J. Oró. 1992. Life before DNA: The origin and
evolution of early Archean cells. In The Evolution of metabolic function, ed.
R. P. Mortlock, 237–95. London: CRC Press.
Olsen, G. J., and C. R. Woese. 1993. Ribosomal RNA: A key to phylogeny.
FASEB Journal 7:113–23.
_____. 1997. Archaeal genomics: An overview. Cell 89:991–94.
Penny, D., and A. Poole. 1999. The nature of the last universal common
ancestor. Current Opinion in Genetics & Development 9:672–77.
Schopf, J. W. 1993. Microfossils of the Early Archean Apex chert: New evi-
dence of the antiquity of life. Science 260:640–46.
_____. 1999. Cradle of Life, The Discovery of Earth’s Earliest Fossils. Princeton,
New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Sleep, N. H., K. J. Zahnle, J. F. Kasting, and H. J. Morowitz. 1989. Annihilation
of ecosystems by large asteroid impacts on the early Earth. Nature
342:139–42.
Stetter, K. O. 1996. Hyperthermophilic procaryotes. FEMS Microbiological
Review 18:149–58.
____. 1996. Hyperthermophiles in the history of life. In Evolution of hydrother-
mal ecosystems on Earth (and Mars?), ed. G. R. Bock and J. A. Goode,
1–10. New York: Wiley.
Woese, C. R. 1987. Bacterial evolution. Microbiological Reviews 51:221–71.
Woese, C. R., O. Kandler, and M. L. Whellis. 1990. Towards a natural system
of organisms: Proposal for the domains Archaea, Bacteria, and Eucarya.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 87:4576–79.
Contributors

SHERWOOD CHANG , SETI INSTITUTE , MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA

Sherwood Chang, an international leader in cosmochemistry and studies of the

origin of life, has been a friend and colleague of Alan Schwartz (coauthor of
chapter 2) for many years, an association dating from the late 1960s when they
shared laboratory facilities at NASA’s Ames Research Center south of San
Francisco. Following completion of his undergraduate studies at Harvard (A. B.
in chemistry, 1962), receipt of his doctorate from the University of Wisconsin
(in organic chemistry, 1966), and postdoctoral research at Stanford University,
Dr. Chang joined the staff at NASA–Ames in 1967, first as a Staff Scientist and
Principal Investigator, then as Chief of the Exobiology Branch, a position he
filled with great distinction from 1985 to 1998. Currently, he is formally affil-
iated with the SETI Institute in northern California, a not-for-profit research
organization focusing on the search for extraterrestrial life. For his contribu-
tions in cosmochemistry, geochemistry, and lunar and planetary science, Dr.
Chang was awarded NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal, two
NASA Special Achievement Awards, the H. Julian Allen Award, and a presti-
gious Dryden Fellowship. From 1986 through 1993, he served as First Vice
President of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life, the
worldwide membership of which elected him an ISSOL Fellow in 1999.

JAMES P. FERRIS , RENSSELAER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE ,

TROY, NEW YORK

James P. Ferris is the 1996 recipient of ISSOL’s A. I. Oparin Medal, awarded for
his masterful studies of how small building-block molecules (monomers) in the
primordial environment could have linked to form long chainlike aggregates
(polymers), compounds such as RNA and proteins on which life depends. He is
currently a Research Professor and Director of the New York Center for Studies

181
182 Contributors

on the Origin of Life (a NASA NSCORT) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute,

whose faculty he joined in 1967. Trained in chemistry at the University of
Pennsylvania (B. S., 1954) and Indiana University (Ph.D., 1958), he was a mem-
ber of the Department of Chemistry at Florida State University and a Research
Scientist at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in southern California. He
has been a Visiting Research Scientist at the State University of New York, Albany;
the Marine Biology Laboratories, Woods Hole, Massachusetts; the Salk Institute
for Biological Studies; the NASA Ames Research Center, California; and the
Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, Laboratory of Organic Chemistry, Zürich,
Switzerland. A past president of ISSOL, he was a long-term (1982–1999) editor
of the Society’s journal, Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere, helping
to achieve its current international preeminence.

ANTONIO LAZCANO , AUTONOMOUS NATIONAL

UNIVERSITY, MEXICO CITY

Antonio Lazcano, a close colleague and long-time friend of Stanley Miller (coau-
thor of chapter 3), is among the best known and most respected of all modern
Mexican biologists. Trained both as an undergraduate and graduate student at
Mexico’s Autonomous National University in Mexico City, he is a recipient of
that university’s most prized accolade—the title of Distinguished Professor.
Recipient of the National University’s Gold Medal of Biological Research, he has
also received an impressive series of other prestigious awards for his contribu-
tions to science, scientific journalism, and teaching. An academic committed to
public education, Professor Lazcano is the author of several books including The
Miraculous Bacteria, a tour de force on microbial evolution; the Spark of Life,
a layperson-level exploration of how life on Earth began; and a national best-
seller (more than 350,000 copies), The Origin of Life. An internationally recog-
nized scholar, he has been a Professor-in Residence or Visiting Scientist at uni-
versities and research institutes in France, Spain, Cuba, Switzerland, Russia, and
the United States. Currently, the First Vice President of the International Society
for the Study of the Origin of Life, Professor Lazcano focuses his research on the
deepest branches of the Universal Tree of Life and the origin and earliest evolu-
tion of the energy-yielding metabolic pathways of living systems.

STANLEY L . MILLER , UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA , SAN DIEGO

Stanley L. Miller, ISSOL’s 1983 A. I. Oparin medalist, is legendary for his fun-
damental contributions to understanding life’s beginnings—contributions that
are now recounted in textbooks worldwide. An early pathfinder in origin-of-life
research, he was the first to show, in experiments plausibly simulating pre-life
Earth conditions, that amino acids and other building blocks of life could have
been formed in the absence of living systems. A native of Oakland, California,
Professor Miller received his undergraduate training at the University of
California, Berkeley, and his doctorate in chemistry (1954) from the University
of Chicago. Following completion of an F. B. Jewett Fellowship at the California
Institute of Technology, and after serving as a faculty member in the College of
Contributors 183

Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University in New York City, he joined

the University of California, San Diego, where he has been Professor of Chemistry
since 1958. He was the first Director of its NASA-supported NSCORT, a
Specialized Center for Research and Training in origin-of-life studies. A past
president of ISSOL, member of the National Academy of Sciences, and an
Honorary Councilor of the Higher Council for Scientific Research of Spain,
Professor Miller has been recognized by the Los Angeles Times Magazine as
among the most outstanding scientists of southern California in the 20th century.

LESLIE E . ORGEL , THE SALK INSTITUTE , LA JOLLA , CALIFORNIA

Leslie E. Orgel, ISSOL’s 1993 H. C. Urey medalist, is an innovative visionary

and chemist extraordinaire whose experimental studies have laid the groundwork
for understanding how information-containing molecules may have emerged and
evolved on the primitive Earth. Born in London, Dr. Orgel was educated in chem-
istry at Oxford University (B. A., 1949; Ph.D., 1951), where he was a Fellow of
Magdalen College from 1950 to 1954. His early career focused on theoretical
inorganic chemistry (at Oxford; the California Institute of Technology; the
University of Chicago; and the University of Cambridge, England), research for
which he was awarded the Harrison Prize and elected to the Royal Society. His
interests then turned to biological problems. In 1964, he was appointed to his
present position of Senior Fellow and Research Professor at the Salk Institute for
Biological Studies at La Jolla, California, where he directs the Chemical Evolution
Laboratory. A member of the National Academy of Sciences and recipient of a
Guggenheim Fellowship, Dr. Orgel has been a Visiting Professor at the Hebrew
University, Jerusalem; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Yale
University. Respected worldwide for his contributions to science, he is also known
as a gifted colleague/mentor of outstandingly successful researchers (such as
ISSOL medalists Alan Schwartz and James Ferris).

JOHN OR ó, UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON , TEXAS

John Oró is the 1986 recipient of ISSOL’s A. I. Oparin Medal, awarded for his
breakthrough experimental studies of prebiotic chemistry, especially of how the
components of gene-carrying nucleic acids may have first formed on the primi-
tive Earth. He also was among the first to suggest a major role for comets as a
source of pre-life organic compounds, a view now widely accepted, and is well
known for his pioneering studies of the organic constituents of meteorites and
ancient rocks. Founder and professor emeritus of the Department of Biochemical
and Biophysical Sciences at the University of Houston, Texas, he is the recipient
of doctorates from the University of Houston and the Universities of Lleida and
Granada in Spain. Professor Oró was born in Catalonia, in the Spanish town of
Lleida near Barcelona—a region he represented as an elected senator to the
Catalonian Congress. He now serves as president of Fundació Joan Oró, a not-
for-profit foundation actively involved in public science education. A past pres-
ident of ISSOL and a scientist who made important contributions to the success
of NASA’s Apollo and Viking programs during the late 1960s and 1970s, he is
184 Contributors

the author of more than 30 books and 300 scientific articles and has organized
and convened some 30 scientific symposia and international scientific meetings.

J . WILLIAM SCHOPF, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA , LOS ANGELES

J. William Schopf is the Director of UCLA’s Center for the Study of Evolution
and the Origin of Life and a member of the Department of Earth and Space
Sciences. Currently ISSOL’s president, he was awarded the Society’s 1989 A. I.
Oparin Medal for his contributions to understanding the early (Precambrian)
history of life. Born in Urbana, Illinois, he received his undergraduate training
in geology at Oberlin College, Ohio, and obtained his doctorate in biology
from Harvard in 1968. Author of Cradle of Life, winner of the 2000 Phi Beta
Kappa Science Award, and editor of two national prize-winning monographs
on early evolution, Professor Schopf has received all three UCLA campus-wide
awards for Teaching, Research, and Academic Excellence and has been recog-
nized by Los Angeles Times Magazine as among southern California’s most
outstanding scientists of the 20th century. He has been honored internation-
ally as a Senior Humboldt Fellow in Germany, a Foreign Member of the Linnean
Society of London, and an honorary member of the faculties of Yunnan
Teachers University, China, and the Russian Academy of Science’s A. N. Bakh
Institute of Biochemistry. A member of the National Academy of Sciences, the
American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences, he is the recipient of two Guggenheim Fellowships and of medals
awarded by the National Science Board–National Science Foundation and by
the National Academy of Sciences.

ALAN W. SCHWARTZ , UNIVERSITY OF

NIJMEGEN , TOERNOOIVELD , THE NETHERLANDS

Alan W. Schwartz is the 1999 recipient of ISSOL’s H. C. Urey Medal, awarded

for his exemplary interdisciplinary studies of some of the most vexing questions
about how life began: What role was played by organic matter brought to Earth
from other bodies? What was the source of phosphate on the primordial planet?
What was the nature of the RNA World, the primitive rootstock of today’s
DNA-based life, and how did it get started? A native of New York City, he was
educated in chemistry and biochemistry at New York University (B. A., 1957)
and Florida State University (Ph.D., 1965). Before joining the faculty at the
University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands, where he has been Professor of
Exobiology since 1968, he held positions at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory,
New Mexico, and at NASA’s Ames Research Center, California. Chair of the
Council of Europe’s Research Group on Cosmic Chemistry, Chemical Evolution,
and Exobiology, and advisor to the European Space Agency Exobiology Team,
Professor Schwartz has been a Visiting Scientist both at the Salk Institute for
Biological Studies in southern California and the University of Tsukuba, Japan.
From 1972 to 1999, he was editor of the international journal BioSystems, a
position he has now assumed for Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere,
the official journal of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life.
Glossary

Acetaldehyde An organic aldehyde, CH3CHO.

Acetic acid An organic acid, CH3COOH.
Acetonitrile An organic cyanide, CH3CN.
Acetylene An organic compound, the hydrocarbon C2H2.
Achiral See Nonchiral.
Activating group Any of various chemical groups whose attachment to mole-
cules primes those molecules for chemical reaction (e.g., by promoting
formation of linking bonds between two monomers).
Adaptive Radiation The evolution of a species into a group of species adapted
to different ecological niches.
Adenine (A) A purine (C5H5N5), a component of ATP, and one of the four
nitrogenous bases present in the nucleic acids DNA and RNA. (For chem-
ical structure, see figures 3.5 or 4.1a.)
Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) An organic compound (C10H16N5O13P3) pres-
ent in all cells that can release energy (derived from sunlight in photoau-
totrophs, chemical reactions in chemoautotrophs, or food in heterotrophs),
stored in its phosphate bonds, to power cellular processes.
Aerobe Any of various organisms capable of using molecular oxygen (O2) in
aerobic respiration, either as a requirement for living processes (as in obli-
gate aerobes) or as an energy-yielding process to supplement fermentation
(as in facultative aerobes).
Aerobic respiration The oxygen-consuming, energy-yielding process carried
out by almost all eukaryotes and diverse prokaryotes.
Alanine A chemically neutral amino acid, CH3CH(NH2)COOH, one of the
20 amino acids commonly present in proteins of living systems.
Alcohol Any of various hydroxyl group–containing organic compounds having
the general formula ROH in which R is a univalent hydrocarbon radical.

185
186 Glossary

Aldehyde Any of various CHO-containing organic compounds having the gen-

eral formula RCOH in which R is a univalent hydrocarbon radical.
ALH84001 The 1.9-kg meteorite claimed to contain evidence of past Martian
microbial life; named for where and when it was found (Allan Hills ice field,
Antarctica, in 1984) together with its assigned sample number (001).
Aliphatic Any of various open-chain (noncyclic) hydrocarbons.
Alpha-amino-n-butyric acid (-amino-n-butyric acid) An amino acid,
CH3CH2CH(NH2)COOH, not commonly present in proteins of living
systems.
Alpha-aminoisobutyric acid (-aminoisobutyric acid) An amino acid,
(CH3)2C(NH2)COOH, not commonly present in proteins of living systems.
Alpha-helix (-helix) A simple spiral arrangement of component parts;
characteristic of the helical structure of portions of some proteins and the
double-stranded DNA of chromosomes.
Amide An organic compound resulting from replacement of one or more atoms
of hydrogen in ammonia by univalent acid radicals.
Amide bond See Peptide bond.
Amine Any of various organic compounds derived from ammonia by re-
placement of hydrogen by one or more univalent hydrocarbon radicals.
Amination The addition of an amino group, –NH2, to a compound.
Amino acid A small molecule (monomer) having an amino group (– NH2)
at one end and a carboxylic acid group (– COOH) at the other; amino
acids can be linked to form a protein having the general formula
RCH(NH2)COOH in which R is a univalent hydrocarbon radical.
Amino acid amide An amino acid–related compound characterized by re-
placement of the hydroxyl (– OH) of the amino acid carboxylic acid group
(– COOH) with the amino group (– NH2), resulting in the general formula
RCH(NH2)CONH2 in which R is a univalent hydrocarbon radical.
Amino acid nitrile An organic cyanide compound having the general formula
RCH(NH2)CN in which R is a univalent hydrocarbon radical.
Amino amide See Amino acid amide.
Amino group The three-atom chemical group –NH2.
Aminomaleonitrile An organic compound, NC(NH2)CHCN. (For chemical
structure, see chapter 3.)
Amino nitrile See Amino acid nitrile.
Aminoimidazole carbonitrile An organic compound, H4C4N4. (For chemical
structure, see chapter 3.)
Ammonia The chemical compound NH3.
Ammonium cyanate An organic compound, NCONH4.
Anabolism Metabolism resulting in buildup (biosynthesis) of organic com-
pounds.
Anaerobe Any of various organisms, almost all prokaryotes, that can live in
the absence of molecular oxygen (O2).
Anoxygenic photosynthesis The non–oxygen-producing photoautotrophy of
photosynthetic bacteria.
Apex chert A fossiliferous horizon of the Apex Basalt, a 3,465  5 Ma-old
geologic unit of Western Australia.
Glossary 187

Archaea (archaeal domain) Together with Bacteria and Eucarya, one of three
superkingdom-like primary branches of the Tree of Life.
Archaean microorganism Any of diverse microbes of the Archaea, a domain
of non-nucleated microbes that includes many kinds of extremophiles
(microorganisms able to thrive in exceedingly acidic high temperature
settings) and methanogens (microbes that give off methane gas as a prod-
uct of metabolism).
Arginine An amino acid, C6H14N4O2, one of the 20 amino acids commonly
present in proteins of living systems.
Aromatic Pertaining to any of various hydrocarbons characterized by the pres-
ence of at least one benzene ring, C6H6.
Artificial life Pertaining to “lifelike” machines (e.g., robots and computers) and
similarly nonbiologic constructions that exhibit biologic-like properties.
Aspartic acid An acidic amino acid, HOOCCH2CH(NH2)COOH, one of the
20 amino acids commonly present in proteins of living systems.
Asteroid Any of thousands of small planetlike bodies orbiting the Sun in the
region of space between Mars and Jupiter and having diameters from a frac-
tion of a kilometer to about 1,000 km.
Asteroidal belt The zone of space between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
Astronomical unit (AU) The mean distance between the Earth and the Sun,
about 150 million km (93 million miles).
ATP See Adenosine triphosphate.
Autocatalytic Pertaining to a chemical reaction that is catalyzed by the prod-
ucts it itself forms.
Autotrophy A metabolic process of plant and plantlike organisms (photoau-
totrophy) and diverse nonphotosynthetic bacteria and archaeans (chemoau-
totrophy) in which carbon dioxide serves as the principal source of cellular
carbon.
Bacteria (bacterial domain) Together with Archaea and Eucarya, one of three
superkingdom-like primary branches of the Tree of Life.
Bacterial microorganism Any of diverse microbes of the Bacterial domain com-
posed of non-nucleated small-celled life forms that includes all of the com-
mon bacteria as well as cyanobacteria.
Bacterium Any of diverse prokaryotes, including cyanobacteria, of the
Bacterial domain.
Bar A unit of pressure equal to one dyne per square centimeter.
Barbituric acid An organic acid, C4H4N2O3.
Base sequence The genetic information–encoding aperiodic arrangement of
nitrogenous bases (the purines, adenine and guanine; and the pyrimidines,
cytosine and thymine or uracil) in DNA or RNA.
Benzene An aromatic hydrocarbon, C6H6.
Beta-alanine (-alanine) An amino acid, NH2CH2CH2COOH, not commonly
present in proteins of living systems.
Beta-sheet (-sheet) A flat sheetlike arrangement of component parts, such as
that characteristic of portions of some proteins.
Bicarbonate An inorganic chemical, HCO3, formed when carbon dioxide dis-
solves in water.
188 Glossary

Big Bang The explosive birth of the Universe in a very hot dense state, about
13 to 15 billion years ago, followed by the expansion of space.
Biochemical Any of a large number of chemical compounds made by living
systems, commonly composed of a mixture of the biogenic elements.
Biochemistry Chemistry that deals with the chemical compounds and processes
that occur in organisms.
Biogenic elements The chemical elements generally regarded as necessary for
life: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorus.
Biopolymer Any of various polymeric chemical compounds made by living sys-
tems such as proteins (polymers of amino acids) and carbohydrates (poly-
mers of sugars).
Biosynthesis The process of manufacture of organic compounds by biologic
systems.
Biosynthetic pathway Any of diverse enzyme-mediated multistep processes by
which organic compounds are formed in living systems.
Biotin An organic compound, C10H16N2O3S, a growth factor present in very
minute amounts in every living cell.
Bond energy Chemical energy that holds together the atoms of a molecule.
Butadiene An organic compound, the hydrocarbon C4H6.
Butlerov (Butlerow) synthesis Known also as the formose reaction, a series of
chemical reactions, first described in 1861 by A. M. Butlerov, by which
treatment of formaldehyde with a strong alkaline catalyst (e.g., NaOH) leads
to the formation of sugars.
Calcium carbonate An inorganic compound, CaCO3, commonly present as the
mineral calcite that makes up limestones.
Calcium hydroxide The inorganic base Ca(OH)2.
Cambrian Period The earliest geologic period of the Phanerozoic Eon of Earth’s
history, extending from 543 to 495 Ma ago.
Carbide Any of various carbon–metal compounds.
Carbohydrate A carbon-, hydrogen-, and oxygen-containing organic polymeric
compound composed of sugar monomers.
Carbon dioxide A colorless odorless gas, CO2, a component of Earth’s
atmosphere.
Carbon fixation The metabolic incorporation of carbon into an organic
compound.
Carbon monoxide A colorless odorless gas, CO, toxic to aerobic organisms.
Carbon-14 (14C) A radioactive isotope of carbon produced in the upper
atmosphere and present in living plants and animals; used in carbon-14 dat-
ing because, by giving off a beta ray, it decays to nitrogen (14N) with a half-
life of about 5,730 years.
Carbonaceous Containing or composed of coal-like organic matter (kerogen),
whether nonbiologic (as in carbonaceous chondrites) or biologic (as in coal
and organic-walled fossils).
Carbonaceous chondrite A relatively rare type of stony meteorite, so named
because of the presence of tiny glassy balls (chondrules) and as much as 5%
of the element carbon, largely in the form of “coaly” organic matter (kero-
gen) formed nonbiologically.
Carbonaceous meteorite A meteorite of the carbonaceous chondrite group.
Glossary 189

Carbonate Any of various minerals containing the chemical group CO32, such
as calcite (CaCO3) or dolomite (CaMg [CO3]2); or a rock consisting chiefly
of such minerals, such as limestone or dolostone.
Carbonyl diimidazole An organic compound, the chemical condensing agent
shown in figure 4.16a.
Carboxyl (carboxylic acid) group The four-atom chemical group –COOH
characteristic of carboxylic organic acids.
Catabolism Metabolism resulting in breakdown of organic compounds and re-
lease of energy.
Catalysis Modification, especially an increase of rate, of a chemical reaction
induced by a substance such as an enzyme or ribozyme that is unchanged
chemically at the end of the reaction.
Centrifugal force The force that tends to impel an object outward from the
center of rotation.
Chemical bond A linkage between two atoms of a molecule or between atoms
of neighboring molecules, often by shared electrons.
Chemoautotrophy An autotrophic metabolism in which energy is generated
by oxidation of an inorganic compound.
Chemolithotrophy A chemically driven metabolic process commonly powered
by coupled oxidation–reduction reactions of inorganic compounds.
Chert A type of rock composed of microcrystalline quartz (SiO2).
Chimera An individual consisting of parts of diverse genetic constitution (for
humans, with reference especially to mitochondria, organelles where aero-
bic respiration occurs in cells, derived initially in early eukaryotes from free-
living purple bacteria).
Chirality Pertaining to the “handedness” of stereoisomers of compounds pres-
ent either in the D-configuration (so named because pure solutions of such
compounds rotate plane-polarized light in the dextro, rightward direction)
or the L-configuration (pure solutions of which rotate plane-polarized light
to the levo, leftward direction).
Chlorophyll Any of several structurally similar light-absorbing pigments that
play a central role in the photosynthesis of cyanobacteria, algae, and higher
plants.
Chondrule A particular kind of small mineralic glass spheroid present in chon-
dritic meteorites.
CHONSP Abbreviation for the biogenic elements: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen,
nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorus.
Circumstellar disk A nebula of gas and dust orbiting a star, typically having
radial sizes comparable to that of the Solar System.
Citric acid cycle The electron transport cycle of aerobic respiration.
CITROENS Abbreviation of a definition of life coined by L. E. Orgel:
Complex Information-Transforming Reproducing Objects that Evolve by
Natural Selection.
Clay mineral Any of a group of hydrous silicates of aluminum chiefly formed
in weathering processes and present especially in clays and shales.
Clay World A stage in prebiotic, precellular, evolution hypothesized by G.
Cairns-Smith during which life originated as a self-replicating inorganic clay
that evolved into organic-based living systems.
190 Glossary

Cloud core Any of various regions in the interstellar medium containing rela-
tively high concentrations of dust and gas (of the order 105 to 106 mole-
cules/cm3) that serve as spawning grounds for the origin of stars.
CNO cycle A linked cycle of nucleosynthetic reactions by which nitrogen and
other nuclides are generated catalytically.
Coacervate A viscous aggregate of colloidal microscopic droplets held together
by electrostatic forces.
Coenzyme A protein that forms the active portion of an enzyme system in
combination with one or more other substrate-specific enzymes.
Comet A celestial body that consists of a core usually surrounded by a bright
nucleus, a dirty snowball-like object composed of aggregated very low-
temperature interstellar matter.
Comet, long period Cometary bodies whose passage in the vicinity of Earth
occurs over relatively long time periods; thought to be derived from the
Oort cloud.
Comet, short period Cometary bodies whose passage in the vicinity of Earth
occurs over relatively short time periods; thought to be derived from the
Kuiper belt.
Condensing agent Chemicals such as cyanogen, cyanamide, and cyanoacety-
lene that facilitate polymerization of monomers.
Cosmochemistry A branch of chemistry that focuses on the composition of the
cosmos.
Cosmology The study of the overall structure and evolution of the Universe.
Covalent bond A bond formed between atoms by the sharing of electrons.
Cretaceous Period The youngest of the three geologic periods of the Mesozoic
Era of Earth’s history, extending from approximately 145 to 65 Ma ago.
Cyanamide An organic cyanide compound, H2NCN.
Cyanate An organic radical, NCO.
Cyanide An organic radical, CN.
Cyanoacetaldehyde An organic cyanide compound, HO(CH)2CN.
Cyanoacetylene An organic compound, HC3N.
Cyanobacterium Any of a diverse group (Cyanobacteria) of prokaryotic mi-
croorganisms capable of oxygen-producing photosynthesis (in older classi-
fications, termed blue-green algae).
Cyanogen A chemical condensing agent, C2N2, and the parent chemical radical
that gives rise to HCN.
Cyanopolyyne An organic compound, HC11N.
Cyclize To undergo cyclization, the formation of one or more rings in a chem-
ical compound.
Cyclohexene An organic compound, the aromatic hydrocarbon C6H10.
Cysteine A sulfur-containing amino acid, HSCH2CH(NH2)COOH.
Cystine A sulfur-containing amino acid, C6H12N2O4S2, one of the 20 amino
acids commonly present in proteins of living systems.
Cytosine (C) An organic compound (C4H5N3O), a pyrimidine, and one of the
four nitrogenous bases present in the nucleic acids DNA and RNA. (For
chemical structure, see chapter 3 or figure 4.1a.)
Cytosol The watery intracellular cytoplasmic fluid.
Glossary 191

D-Configuration Pertaining to a stereoisomer of a compound that in pure so-

lution rotates plane polarized light in the dextro, rightward direction.
D-Enantiomer See D-isomer.
D-Isomer A stereoisomer of a compound having the D-configuration.
D-Nucleotide A nucleotide having the D-configuration.
D-Ribose The stereoisomer of ribose sugar present in the nucleic acids RNA
and DNA.
Darwinian evolution Biological evolution via natural selection (competition).
Deamination The removal of an amino group, ¬NH2, from a compound.
Decarboxylation The removal of a carboxyl group, ¬COOH, from a com-
pound.
Dehydration condensation A kind of chemical reaction that involves forma-
tion of a water molecule (H–O–H) by removal of an atom of hydrogen
(–H) from one monomer and a hydroxyl group (–OH) from another as the
two combine into a dimer, or from one monomer and an oligomer that com-
bine into a polymer.
Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) The genetic information–containing molecule
of cells, a double-stranded nucleic acid made up of nucleotides that contain
a nitrogenous base (adenine, guanine, thymine, or cytosine), deoxyribose,
and a phosphate group.
Deoxyribose A pentose sugar, C5H10O4, a structural unit of DNA.
Deuterium The hydrogen isotope 2H that is twice the mass of ordinary
hydrogen 1H.
Diaminofumaronitrile An organic compound, C4H4N4. (For chemical struc-
ture, see chapter 3.)
Diaminomaleonitrile An organic compound, C4H4N4. (For chemical structure,
see chapter 3.)
Diaminopurine An organic compound, C5H6N6. (For chemical structure, see
figure 3.5.)
Dicarbonyl diimidazole An organic compound having the chemical structure
shown in figure 4.15a.
Dicarboxylic acid Any of various organic acids containing two carboxylic acid
groups, (– COOH)2.
Dihydroxyacetone An organic compound, HOCH2COCH2OH.
Dimer A short oligomer consisting of two monomeric subunits.
Dipeptide An oligomer consisting of two amino acids linked by a peptide bond.
DNA See Deoxyribonucleic acid.
DNA polymerase A protein enzyme that brings about the replication of DNA.
Domain One of three, major, superkingdom-like primary branches of the Tree
of Life.
Dwarf star A stellar object in the final stages of its evolution when its outer
layers have been blown away to reveal an underlying hot, much smaller
body (such as a white dwarf).
Electron acceptor In a chemical reaction, a molecule that accepts one or more
electrons contributed by another molecule.
Electron carrier In a chain of chemical reactions, molecules that accept elec-
trons from an electron donor and pass them to an electron acceptor.
192 Glossary

Electron donor In a chemical reaction, a molecule that contributes one or more

electrons to another molecule.
E  mc2 Einstein’s famous equation for the equivalence of energy and mass.
Electroweak A unified force that combines the electromagnetic and weak nu-
clear interactions.
Entelechy An inherent essence that regulates and directs the vital processes of
an organism that is nonmaterial and not discoverable by scientific investi-
gation.
Enzyme A protein or RNA (ribozyme) capable of catalyzing a biochemical
reaction.
Ester Any of various organic compounds containing a carbonyl group (C“O)
adjacent to an ether group (C–O–C), as in a compound of the general for-
mal RC(O)COCR in which R is a univalent hydrocarbon radical.
Ethane An organic compound, the hydrocarbon CH3CH3.
Ethanol An organic compound, the alcohol CH3C2OH.
Ethanolamine An organic compound, HOCH2CH2NH2.
Ether Any of various organic compounds characterized by the ether group
C–O–C.
Ethylene An organic compound, CH2CH2.
Eucarya (eucaryal domain) Together with Bacteria and Archaea, one of three
superkingdom-like primary branches of the Tree of Life.
Eukaryote Any of diverse organisms of the superkingdom-like Domain
Eucarya, a domain composed of plants and animals—higher organisms hav-
ing relatively large cells in which chromosomes are packaged in a saclike
nucleus.
Europa One of the larger of the 16 satellites of planet Jupiter.
Eutectic Of or relating to an alloy or solution at its lowest melting point.
Exergonic The liberation of energy.
Exobiology Extraterrestrial biology.
Extremophile Any of various microbes, such as many archaeans, that tolerate
exceptionally high-temperature acidic environments.
Fatty acid Any of numerous monocarboxylic acids having the general formula
CnH2n1COOH, such as acetic acid, CH3COOH.
Fatty alcohol Any of numerous alcohols of fatty acids having the general for-
mula CnH2n1CH2OH, such as ethyl alcohol, CH3CH2OH.
Fermentation Anaerobic metabolism.
Ferric iron Oxidized iron, having a valence of 3 as in the mineral hematite,
Fe23O32– .
Ferrous iron Reduced iron, having a valence of 2 as in the mineral pyrite,
Fe2S2 .
Folic acid An organic acid, C19H19N7O6.
Formaldehyde An organic compound, CH2O, the simplest aldehyde and an
important intermediate compound in Miller-type organic syntheses.
Formamide An organic compound, CHONH2.
Formamidine An organic compound, HNCHNH2.
Formate A salt of formic acid.
Formic acid An organic acid, HCOOH.
Glossary 193

Formose reaction See Butlerov (Butlerow) synthesis.

Fructose An organic compound, the fruit sugar C6H12O6.
Furanose A sugar consisting of a five-membered ring like that present normally
in the ribose sugar of RNA.
Galaxy A large gravitationally bound and generally spiral or elliptical collec-
tion of stars, such as the Milky Way Galaxy, which consists of several hun-
dred billion stars.
Gamma aminobutyric acid (-aminobutyric acid) An amino acid,
H2NCH2CH2CH2COOH, not commonly present in proteins of living
systems.
Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) A technique used to iden-
tify organic compounds by the use of a gas chromatographic-mass spectro-
metric instrument that first volatilizes the compounds then identifies them
by their mass spectra.
Gene A segment of DNA containing information for production of one or
more molecules of protein or RNA.
Gene copying (gene duplication) The process by which multiple copies of genes
are biosynthesized.
Genetic code The biochemical basis of heredity consisting of codons (each a
triplet sequence of nucleic acid bases) that determine the specific amino acid
sequence in proteins.
Genetic takeover The process in the prebiotic evolution of the Clay World hy-
pothesized by G. Cairns-Smith during which life evolved from a self-
replicating inorganic clay into organic-based living systems.
Genetics The genetic makeup of an organism.
Genome The genes present in an organism.
Giant planet Any of the four especially large planets of the Solar System, from
innermost to outermost, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.
Glucose A six-carbon sugar, C6H12O6, commonly referred to as the universal
fuel of life and abbreviated CH2O.
Glutamic acid An acidic amino acid, HOOCCH2CH2CH(NH2)COOH, one
of the 20 amino acids commonly present in proteins of living systems.
Glyceraldehyde An organic aldehyde, CH2HOCHOHCHO.
Glycerol An organic alcohol, CH2OHCHOHCH2OH.
Glycine A chemically neutral amino acid, CH2(NH2)COOH, one of the 20
amino acids commonly present in proteins of living systems.
Glycoaldehyde An organic aldehyde, CHOCH2OH.
Glycolic acid An organic acid, HOCH2COOH.
Graphite A mineral, crystalline carbon, C6.
Greenhouse effect A warming of the Earth’s surface and lower layers of the at-
mosphere caused by interaction of solar radiation with atmospheric gases
(mainly carbon dioxide, methane, and water vapor) and its conversion to heat.
Greenhouse gas Gases such as ammonia (NH3), methane (CH4), carbon diox-
ide (CO2), and water vapor (H2O), that can produce a greenhouse effect.
Guanine (G) An organic compound (C5H5N5O), a purine, and one of the four
nitrogenous bases present in the nucleic acids DNA and RNA. (For chem-
ical structure, see figures 3.5 or 4.1a.)
194 Glossary

Guanylic acid An organic acid, guanosine monophosphate, C10H14N5O8P.

Half-life The time required for half of the material in a substance to be con-
verted into another substance.
Hematite A mineral, the iron oxide Fe2O3.
Hemoglobin An iron-containing protein present in the red blood cells of many
animals.
Heredity The transmission of genetic factors that determine individual char-
acteristics from one generation to the next.
Heterooligomer A small compound (oligomer) composed of chemically
different parts.
Heterochiral See Nonracemic.
Heterotrophic hypothesis The concept introduced by A. I. Oparin and J. B. S.
Bernal that the earliest forms of life were heterotrophs that used nonbio-
logically produced organic matter as their carbon source.
Heterotrophy The metabolic process of animals and animal-like organisms in
which organic compounds serve as the source of carbon and energy.
Hexamer A polymer composed of six monomers.
Hexose Any of various six-carbon sugars.
Histidine An amino acid, C6H9N3O2, one of the 20 amino acids commonly
present in proteins of living systems.
Homochiral Pertaining to a mixture of molecules that contains only one
stereoisomer.
Hubble Space Telescope A robotic telescope, launched by NASA in 1990 by
the Shuttle Discovery, especially effective because it orbits Earth above much
of the atmosphere.
Hydrocarbon Any of a diverse group of organic compounds composed of hy-
drogen and carbon.
Hydrogen cyanide An organic compound, HCN.
Hydrogen sulfide A gaseous organic compound, H2S.
Hydrolysis A process of breakdown of chemical compounds that involves ad-
dition of the chemical elements of water (HOH) to the substance broken
down.
Hydroxy acid An organic acid having the general formula RCH(OH)COOH,
in which R is a univalent hydrocarbon radical.
Hydroxy nitrile A cyanide organic acid having the general formula
RCH(OH)COOH, in which R is a univalent hydrocarbon radical.
Hydroxyapatite A mineral, Ca5(PO4)3(OH), the material that constitutes bones
in vertebrate animals.
Hydroxyl group The two-atom chemical group ¬OH.
Hydrothermal vent A fissure, commonly on the ocean floor but also on con-
tinental platforms, through which hot water, dissolved minerals, and gases
emanate.
Hyperthermophile Any of various prokaryotic microorganisms, such as diverse
members of the Archaea, that survive and grow at exceptionally high tem-
peratures (80C) and generally grow optimally at and above 90C.
Hypoxanthine An organic compound, a purine having the formula C5H4N4O.
(For chemical structure, see figure 3.6.)
Glossary 195

IDP See Interplanetary dust particle.

Illite A clay mineral having the composition Al,K,Ca,Mg(Si2O7)2(OH)4.
Imidazole An organic compound, C3H4N2.
Inflationary model A theory of cosmology in which a large cosmological con-
stant temporarily exists early in the history of the Universe, leading to its
rapidly accelerating expansion.
Infrared light That part of the electromagnetic spectrum lying outside the vis-
ible range at its red end.
Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) Launched by NASA in 1995, an Earth-orbiting
telescope that observes in the infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Infrared spectroscopy A technique used to identify organic compounds by use
of their spectral response to infrared light.
Infrared spectrum The distinctive spectrum given by a compound in the
infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Intermediate compound Any chemical compound formed in a reaction
sequence prior to formation of the final product.
Interplanetary dust particle (IDP) Any of the small cometary rocky particles
(50 m) and similarly-sized asteroidal fragments that comprise inter-
planetary debris.
Interstellar cloud Vast regions of space occupied by gases and tiny particles of
matter.
Interstellar dust See Interstellar cloud.
Interstellar medium See Interstellar cloud.
Ion An electrically charged atom or group of atoms.
Iridium A platinum-group heavy-metal element, 77Ir.
Iron carbide Any of various iron–carbon compounds.
Isocyanic acid An organic compound, CHNO.
Isotope Any of two or more types of atoms of a chemical element that have
nearly identical chemical behavior but differ in atomic mass and physical
properties.
Isotopic date Age of a rock (or organic substance 60,000 years old) deter-
mined by measurement of the ratio of a stable isotope to one of the prod-
ucts of its radioactive decay.
Isotopic fractionation Separation of isotopes of an element; in organisms, of-
ten mediated by an enzyme.
Kaolin A clay mineral having the composition Al2(Si2O5)(OH)4.
Ketone Any of various organic compounds characterized by the presence of a
carbonyl group, C“O, attached to two carbon atoms, as in acetone,
CH3COCH3.
Kinetic energy Energy generated by or resulting from movement.
Kinetic isotopic fractionation Separation of isotopes of an element as a result
of their speeds of movement; in organisms, mediated by an enzyme that
interacts more readily with one of two or more isotopes of an element.
Kuiper belt A belt of cometary bodies having orbits that lie beyond that of
Neptune and mostly beyond that of Pluto.
L-Configuration Pertaining to a stereoisomer of a compound that in pure
solution rotates plane-polarized light in the levo, leftward direction.
196 Glossary

L-Enantiomer See l-isomer.

L-Isomer A stereoisomer of a compound having the L-configuration.
L-Nucleotide A nucleotide having its isomeric components in the L-configuration.
L-Ribose A nonbiological form of ribose sugar, the mirror image of the
stereoisomer of ribose present in the nucleic acids RNA and DNA.
Lactic acid An organic acid, C3H6O3, produced commonly by fermentation.
Last Common Ancestor (LCA) The plexus of primitive early-evolved microbes
that existed before the rise of superkingdom-like domains; the evolutionary
rootstock of all organisms living today.
Leucine A chemically neutral amino acid, (CH3)2CHCH2CH(NH2)COOH,
one of the 20 amino acids commonly present in proteins of living systems.
Ligate To bond or link together.
Light-year A unit of length equal to the distance that light travels in one year
in a vacuum, about 10 trillion km (6 trillion miles).
Limestone A kind of sedimentary rock consisting mainly of calcium carbon-
ate minerals.
Lipid Fats, waxes, and similar organic compounds soluble in nonpolar sol-
vents such as chloroform, CHCl3, and ethyl ether, C2H5CH2OCH3.
Lipoic acid A microbiological growth factor, the organic compound C8H14O2S2.
Lysine An amino acid, NH2(CH2)4CH(NH2)COOH, one of the 20 amino acids
commonly present in proteins of living systems.
Ma Mega anna, one million (1 106) years.
Magma Molten rock such as volcanic lava.
Magnetite A mineral, the iron oxide Fe3O4.
Main sequence star The phase of stellar evolution, lasting about 90% of a
star’s life, during which the star fuses hydrogen to helium in its core.
Mandelic acid An organic acid, C6H5CH(OH)COOH.
Mass spectrometry An instrument-based method of identifying the chemical
constituents of a substance by means of the separation of gaseous ions
according to their differing mass and charge.
Mesophile An organism adapted to the average range of temperatures present
today on Earth.
Messenger RNA (mRNA) RNA molecules that transport genetic information
from DNA to ribosomes.
Metabolic pathway Any of numerous enzyme-mediated multistep processes by
which metabolism is carried out in living systems.
Metabolism The sum of the energy-consuming and energy-producing processes
that happen during the chemical buildup and breakdown of organic com-
pounds in living systems.
Metamorphism A change in the constitution of a rock produced by pressure
and heat.
Meteor Solar System matter observable when it falls through Earth’s atmos-
phere and is heated by friction to temporary incandescence; a “shooting star.”
Meteorite A meteor that reaches Earth’s surface.
Methane The colorless gaseous hydrocarbon CH4.
Methane-generating prokaryote Any of various archaeal microbes that give
off methane gas as a product of their chemoautotrophic metabolism.
Glossary 197

Methanogen See Methane-generating prokaryote.

Methyl group The four-atom chemical group ¬CH3.
Methionine A sulfur-containing amino acid, CH3SCH2CH2CH(NH2)COOH,
one of the 20 amino acids commonly present in proteins of living systems.
Micelle A molecular aggregate that constitutes a colloidal particle.
Milky Way Galaxy The galaxy of which the Solar System is a part.
Molecular Biologist’s Dream A hypothetical world ideal for prebiotic synthe-
ses on the primitive Earth envisioned by G. F. Joyce and L. E. Orgel in which
pools and lagoons were loaded with chemically activated nucleotides ready
to be polymerized into RNA.
Molecular biology A branch of biology dealing with the molecular physico-
chemical organization of living matter.
Mollusk Any of an animal phylum (Mollusca) characterized by a large muscular
foot and a mantle that secretes spicules or shells, such as a snail, clam, or squid.
Monomer A chemical compound, usually small, that can be linked to other
monomers into a larger, multicomponent polymer.
Mononucleotide A nucleotide composed of one monomer each of a purine or
pyrimidine nitrogenous base, a ribose or deoxyribose sugar, and a phos-
phoric acid group.
Montmorillonite A hydrated clay mineral having the composition (Al, Mg)8
(Si4O10)3(OH)10 10H2O.
mRNA See Messenger RNA.
Murchison meteorite An organic-rich meteorite observed to fall on September
28, 1969 near Murchison, Australia.
Mutation Any change in the nucleotide sequence of a gene.
N-Carboxyanhydride An organic compound (see figure 4.16), a member of a
group of similar compounds known as Leuchs’ anhydrides.
Natural selection The preferential survival of individuals having advantageous
variations relative to other members of their population or species; for nat-
ural selection to operate, there must be competition for resources (a strug-
gle for survival) and suitable variation among individuals.
Nebula A region of space containing a higher than average density of inter-
stellar gas and dust.
Negentropic process A process that increases order in a system.
Neurotransmitter A substance that transmits nerve impulses across a synapse.
Neutral atmosphere An atmosphere that is neither reducing (hydrogen-rich)
nor oxidizing (such as one containing abundant O2), e.g., one having the
composition CO2  N2  H2O.
Neutron star A star characterized by an abundance of neutrons, uncharged
massive particles present in the nuclei of atoms.
Nitrate A biologically usable form of nitrogen, NO3– .
Nitride Any of various nitrogen–metal compounds.
Nitrile An organic cyanide compound that contains the chemical group CN
which, on hydrolysis, yields an acid with elimination of ammonia.
Nitrogen fixation The biologic process carried out by various bacterial and ar-
chaeal prokaryotes in which molecular nitrogen, N2, is combined with
hydrogen to produce ammonia, NH3, a biologically usable form of nitrogen.
198 Glossary

Noble (inert) gas Any of a group of gases that exhibit great stability and ex-
tremely low reaction rates, such as helium, neon, argon, and krypton.
Nonchiral Pertaining to a substance or solution that lacks chirality, or “hand-
edness.”
Nonenzymatic Pertaining to a process that takes place in the absence of
catalyzing enzyme.
Nonracemic Pertaining to a mixture that contains only one of the two (L or D)
stereoisomers of a compound.
Nonpolar Pertaining to an uncharged compound.
Nuclear fusion The fusion of the nuclei of atoms that takes place in stars dur-
ing some nucelosynthetic processes.
Nucleic acid The genetic information–containing organic acids DNA and
RNA.
Nucleoside A chemical compound consisting of a purine or pyrimidine
nitrogenous base combined with deoxyribose or ribose sugar.
Nucleosynthesis Any of various processes in stars that result in formation of
chemical elements.
Nucleotide Any of several compounds that consist of a sugar (deoxyribose or
ribose) linked to a purine (adenine [A] or guanine [G]) or a pyrimidine
(thymine [T], cytosine [C], or uracil [U]) nitrogenous base, and a phosphate
group; the basic structural units of DNA and RNA.
Nucleus In eukaryotes, a saclike, membrane-enclosed organelle that contains
the chromosomes.
Obligate aerobe An organism unable to live in the absence of the molecular
oxygen (O2).
Obligate anaerobe An organism incapable of growth and reproduction in the
presence of molecular oxygen (O2).
Oligomer Any small polymeric chemical compound composed of a few or sev-
eral monomeric subunits.
Oligonucleotide A short polymer composed of nucleotide subunits.
Oort cloud A spheroidal shell of cometary bodies that encircles the Solar
System and is composed of objects having orbits that are from about 100
to more than 10,000 AU distant from Earth.
Organic acid Any of various acidic organic compounds such as fatty acids and
carboxylic acids.
Organic chemistry Chemistry that deals with organic compounds, including
(but not limited to) chemical compounds and processes that occur in
organisms.
Organic compound A chemical compound of the type typical of (but not
restricted to) living systems, composed commonly of carbon, hydrogen, oxy-
gen, nitrogen, sulfur, and/or phosphorus.
Orotic acid An organic acid, C5H4N2O4, a biosynthetic precursor of pyrim-
idines.
Oscillatoriaceae A taxonomic family of morphologically simple filamentous
cyanobacteria.
Oxalic acid An organic acid, (COOH)2 2H2O, present in many plants.
Oxic Pertaining to the presence of molecular oxygen (O2).
Glossary 199

Oxidation A chemical process in which oxygen combines with another ele-

ment (or in which hydrogen or electrons are removed from an element) and
energy is released in the form of heat.
Oxide A chemical compound consisting of oxygen and one or more other
elements as in the minerals hematite, Fe2O3, and magnetite, Fe3O4.
Oxygenic photosynthesis Oxygen-producing photoautotrophy such as that in
plants, algae, some protists, and cyanobacteria.
Ozone A triatomic form of oxygen, O3, formed naturally in the upper
atmosphere.
p-RNA See Pyranosyl-ribonucleic acid.
PAH See Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon.
Paleobiology A broad, paleontology- and geochemistry-based science that, by
seeking evidence of the living processes of ancient life, goes beyond the
traditional fossil-focused approach.
Panspermia The theory that living microbes can be transported from one star
system to others by the radiation pressure of starlight.
Paraformaldehyde An organic compound, polymerized formaldehyde,
(CH2O)n.
Pentose Any five-carbon sugar.
Peptide A chemical compound, such as a protein, in which components are
linked by peptide bonds (see figure 4.2b).
Peptide bond The type of chemical bond that links adjacent amino acids in
proteins.
Peptide nucleic acid (PNA) A nucleic acid analog in which the sugar–
phosphate backbone of RNA or DNA is replaced by a backbone held to-
gether by amide bonds rather than the standard sugar–phosphate linkage
(see figure 5.6c).
Petrify The process by which organic-walled organisms can be preserved as
fossils, embedded three-dimensionally in a siliceous, calcitic, or other min-
eral matrix.
pH A scale used in expressing acidity and alkalinity, the values of which extend
from 0 to 14; pH  7 represents neutrality, pH 7 indicates acidity, and
pH  7 indicates basicity.
Phanerozoic Eon The younger of two principal divisions (eons) of Earth’s his-
tory, extending from the beginning of the Cambrian Period, 550 Ma ago
to the present; the Phanerozoic and the older Precambrian Eon comprise all
geologic time.
Phenylacetaldehyde An organic compound, the aldehyde C6H5CH2CHO.
Phenylacetylene An organic compound, the hydrocarbon C8H6.
Phenylalanine An aromatic amino acid, C6H5CH2CH(NH2)COOH, one of the
20 amino acids commonly present in proteins of living systems.
Phosphate ester bond A particular kind of chemical bond present in all nucleic
acids.
Phosphate group The chemical group, PO43.
Phosphodiester bond See Phosphate ester bond.
Phospholipid Any of various phosphate-containing lipids.
Phosphorus nitrile An organic cyanide, P(CN)5.
200 Glossary

Phosphorylation The addition to a compound of phosphorus or of a phos-

phorous-containing chemical group.
Photoautotrophy Autotrophy powered by light energy.
Photodissociation The breaking apart of a chemical compound by photolysis.
Photolysis Decomposition of a chemical compound by the action of light energy.
Photosynthesis The metabolic process carried out by photosynthetic bacteria,
cyanobacteria, algae, and plants in which light energy is converted to chem-
ical energy and stored in molecules of biosynthesized carbohydrates (e.g., in
oxygenic photosynthesis, light energy  CO2  H2O S CH2O  O2).
Photosynthetic Bacterium Any of diverse types of bacteria capable of anoxy-
genic photosynthesis.
Physiology Pertaining to the chemical functions and activities of living systems.
Planetesimal Any of various celestial bodies, meters to tens of kilometers
across, that aggregate to form planets by gravitational attraction.
Plate Tectonics Global tectonics based on an Earth model characterized by many
thick oceanic or continental plates that move slowly across the global surface
propelled by movement of underlying material of the planetary interior.
PNA See Peptide nucleic acid.
Polar Pertaining to compounds having dipoles, positively and/or negatively
charged parts.
Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon (PAH) Any of various organic compounds
composed of a few to many usually six-membered rings of carbon atoms
linked by an alternating sequence of single and double bonds and to which
hydrogen atoms are attached.
Polymer A multicomponent chemical compound, usually large, that consists
of many monomers linked together.
Polymerase An enzyme that builds polymers from monomeric subunits.
Polynucleotide Any of various nucleic acids, polymers of nucleotides.
Polypeptide Any of various proteins, polymers of amino acids.
Polysaccharide Any of various carbohydrates, polymers of monosaccharides.
Porphyrin Any of various metal-free derivatives of pyrrole, characteristic
especially of chlorophyll or hemoglobin.
Pre-protein Any of various kinds of molecules hypothesized to have preceded
and evolved into proteins.
Pre-RNA Any of various kinds of molecules hypothesized to have preceded
and evolved into RNA.
Precambrian Eon The older of two principal divisions (eons) of Earth’s history,
extending from the formation of the planet, 4,550 Ma ago, to the begin-
ning of the Cambrian Period, 550 Ma ago; the Precambrian and the
younger Phanerozoic Eon comprise all geologic time.
Prokaryote Any of diverse types of non-nucleated microorganisms of the
Archaea and Bacteria.
Propionic acid An organic acid, CH3CH2COOH.
Protein A polymeric organic compound composed of amino acid monomers.
Proteinoid Any of various organic polymers, in some respects similar to pro-
teins, formed by the heating of mixtures of amino acids.
Proto-Earth The early Earth, in the process of forming.
Glossary 201

Protoplanet A planet that is in the process of forming.

Proto-Sun The early Sun, in the process of forming.
Protobiont A precellular or very primitively cellular living system hypothesized
to have preceded the emergence of cellular life.
Protogalaxy A galaxy that is in the process of forming.
Proton–proton chain A sequence of nucleosynthetic reactions that transforms
hydrogen to helium.
Protoplanetary disk A discoidal concentration of gas and dust that can
condense to form a planet by gravitational attraction.
Purine A type of nitrogenous base in nucleic acid, such as adenine or guanine.
Pyranosyl-ribonucleic acid (p-RNA) A ribonucleic acid in which the five-
membered furanose form of ribose is replaced by its six-membered isomer,
the pyranose form (see figure 5.6b).
Pyranose A sugar consisting of a six-membered ring; for the sugar ribose, a
form not normally present in RNA.
Pyridoxal An organic compound, C8H9NO3.
Pyrimidine A type of nitrogenous base, such as cytosine, thymine, or uracil,
present in nucleic acids.
Pyrite A mineral, iron sulfide, FeS2.
Pyrolysis A breakdown of compounds due to intense heating.
Pyrophosphate A chemical form of phosphate like that in the triphosphates
present in living systems.
Pyrrole An organic compound, C4H5N, arranged in a ring consisting of four
carbon atoms and one nitrogen atom.
R group An abbreviation meaning “chemical radical” used in generalized for-
mulas of organic compounds to represent a univalent hydrocarbon radical
such as the methyl group, ¬CH3, or the ethyl group, ¬C2H5.
Racemic mixture One in which equal amounts of a compound are present
both in the stereoisomeric configuration that occurs in biologic systems (such
as the L form of amino acids and the D form of sugars) and in the nonbio-
logical mirror image of this configuration; for example, equal mixtures of
L- and D -isomers of amino acids. (For a comparison of the amino acid
L-alanine and a mixture of L- and D-alanine, see figure 4.13.)
Racemize A process during which compounds that are present initially in a
single isomeric configuration become changed such that the result contains
equal amounts of compounds both in their original configuration and in the
mirror image of this configuration.
Radioactivity The property possessed by isotopes of some elements (such as
carbon and uranium) of spontaneously emitting alpha or beta rays by the
disintegration of the nuclei of atoms.
Red giant A phase in stellar evolution following completion of the main-
sequence phase, when the star becomes especially large and bright.
Reducing atmosphere An atmosphere that is rich in hydrogen and hydrogen-
containing gases having, for example, a composition of CH4  N2  H2O,
CH4  NH3  H2O, CO  N2  H2O, or CO2  N2  H2.
Reduction In chemistry, to combine with or subject to the action of hydrogen,
thereby lowering the oxidation state.
202 Glossary

Ribonucleic acid (RNA) A normally single-stranded nucleic acid made up of

nucleotides that contain a backbone of ribose sugar and phosphate to which
are linked the purines (adenine and guanine) and the pyrimidines (cytosine
and uracil).
Ribonucleotide A nucleotide containing ribose.
Ribose A five-carbon sugar, C5H10O5.
Ribose phosphate A dimer consisting of ribose and a phosphate group.
Ribosomal ribonucleic acid (rRNA) Any of several RNAs present in ribo-
somes.
Ribosome The tiny globular “protein factories” where protein synthesis oc-
curs in cells; made up of three RNA molecules and scores of proteins.
Ribozyme Any of numerous kinds of RNA that have enzymelike properties.
RNA See Ribonucleic acid.
RNA World A stage in prebiotic, precellular evolution hypothesized by
W. Gilbert during which life originated as self-replicating ribozyme-like RNAs
that served both as information-containing and catalytic molecules.
rRNA See Ribosomal ribonucleic acid.
Sarcosine An organic acid, CH3NHCH2COOH.
Sediment Particulate, commonly granular mineralic material deposited by
water, wind, or glaciers that can be lithified to a sedimentary rock on com-
pression.
Seed plant Any of diverse higher land plants, such as gymnosperms and an-
giosperms, that produce seeds.
Semipermeable Pertaining to a barrier, such as a membrane, that is permeable
to small molecules but not to other, usually larger, particles.
Serine A hydroxyl-containing amino acid, HOCH2CH(NH2)COOH, one of
the 20 amino acids commonly present in proteins of living systems.
SETI Abbreviation for the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, a project
begun by NASA in 1992 and currently carried out by the privately funded
SETI Institute in northern California.
Shale A sedimentary rock formed by consolidation of clay or mud.
Shoemaker-Levy 9 (SL-9) A comet that was observed to fall onto the upper
layers of the atmosphere of planet Jupiter in 1994.
Silica An inorganic chemical compound, silicon dioxide (SiO2), the mineral of
which sand is composed.
Silicate Any of a great number of silicon- and oxygen-containing minerals.
Sodium hydroxide An inorganic chemical base, NaOH.
Solar mass The mass of the Sun, 1.99 1033 g, about 330,000 times the mass
of Earth.
Solar nebula The rotating circumstellar disk and its embedded protostar that
gravitationally condensed to form the Solar System.
Solar System The Sun and the planets (and their satellites) that orbit it, from
innermost to outermost: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars (the terrestrial plan-
ets); Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune (the giant or Jovian planets); and Pluto
(a planet-like object).
Solar (stellar) wind The continuous or quasicontinuous ejection of plasma from
the Sun’s surface into and through interplanetary space.
Glossary 203

Species In biology, the fundamental category of biological classification, rank-

ing below the genus and in some species composed of subspecies or varieties.
Spectrum The electromagnetic radiation given off by an object or substance,
usually plotted as a function of wavelength or frequency.
Spontaneous generation The theory that life could originate all at once from
dead matter, a concept disproved by the French chemist Louis Pasteur in
the 1860s.
Spore plant Any of various lower land plants such as club mosses (lycophytes)
and horse-tails (sphenophytes) that reproduce by shedding spores rather
than by producing seeds.
Stereoisomer Any of a group of isomers in which atoms are linked in the same
order but differ in their spatial arrangement.
Stratum A layer or horizon of sedimentary rock.
Strecker synthesis A chemical reaction sequence by which amino acids are
formed from aldehyde, hydrogen cyanide, and ammonium.
Succinic acid An organic acid, HOOCCH2CH2COOH.
Sugar Any of various monosaccharides having the generalized formula CH2O,
such as fructose, sucrose, and glucose.
Sulfide A chemical compound of sulfur and another element as in the mineral
pyrite, FeS2, or gaseous hydrogen sulfide, H2S.
Sulfuric acid An inorganic acid, H2SO4.
Supernova The violent explosion of a star at the end of its life that generates
heavy elements extending from iron to uranium.
Tectonic Pertaining to a crust-deforming process or event.
Template-directed synthesis A chemical synthesis in which a polymeric mol-
ecule serves as a substrate (a template) that organizes and stabilizes the
formation of another polymer on its surface.
Terrestrial planet Any of the four innermost rocky planets of the Solar System,
from innermost to outermost: Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars.
Tetrose Any of various four-carbon sugars.
Thermodynamics Physics that deals with the mechanical action or relations of
heat.
Thermophile Any of various organisms, such as diverse prokaryotes, that can
survive and grow in relatively high-temperature environments such as hot
springs.
Thiamine An organic compound, vitamin B1, C12H17N4OS)Cl.
Thioacetic acid A sulfur-containing organic acid, C2H4OS.
Thioester World A stage in prebiotic, precellular, evolution hypothesized by
C. De Duve during which chemical reactions among thioester-containing or-
ganic compounds (sulfur-linked ester compounds) played a central role.
Tholin A term coined by C. Sagan to refer to the complex organic polymer
formed in a Miller-type prebiotic synthesis.
Threonine A hydroxyl-containing amino acid, CH3CH(OH)CH(NH2) COOH,
one of the 20 amino acids commonly present in proteins of living systems.
Thymine (T) An organic compound, C5H6N2O2, a pyrimidine and one of the
four nitrogenous bases present in the nucleic acid DNA.
Titan One of the larger of the 16 satellites of planet Jupiter.
204 Glossary

Toluene An organic compound, C7H8, known also as methylbenzene.

Transcribe In molecular biology, the process by which the sequence of bases
in DNA is encoded into messenger RNA (mRNA) by RNA polymerases; a
process similar to that involved in DNA replication.
Translate In molecular biology, the complicated process by which the sequence
of bases in messenger RNA (mRNA) is used to produce functional proteins
at ribosomes.
Tree of Life A branching, treelike representation showing the relatedness of
all living organisms, commonly based on comparison of rRNAs, the ri-
bonucleic acids of protein-manufacturing ribosomes.
Tricarboxylic Acid Any of various organic acids containing three carboxylic
acid groups (¬COOH)3.
Trilobite Any of a group (Trilobita) of extinct arthropods of the first half of
the Phanerozoic Eon (the Paleozoic Era, 543 to 245 Ma ago), characterized
by a three-lobed body organization.
Triple- process A process of nucleosynthesis by which one atom of 12C is
formed by the condensation of three helium nuclides.
Tyrosine An aromatic amino acid, C9H11NO3, one of the 20 amino acids com-
monly present in proteins of living systems.
Ultraviolet (UV) light That part of the electromagnetic spectrum having wave-
lengths between 200 and 300 nm that lie outside the visible range at its vi-
olet end.
Universal Tree of Life A branching, treelike representation showing the related-
ness of all living organisms, commonly based on comparison of rRNAs, the
ribonucleic acids of protein-manufacturing ribosomes.
Uracil (U) An organic compound, C4H4N2O2, a pyrimidine and one of the four
nitrogenous bases present in the nucleic acid RNA. (For chemical structure,
see figure 4.1a.)
Uranyl ion A charged uranium oxide radical, UO22.
Urea An organic compound, CO(NH2)2.
Valine A chemically neutral amino acid, (CH3)2CHCH(NH2)COOH, one of
the 20 amino acids commonly present in proteins of living systems.
Virus A submicroscopic organic object, typically composed of a protein coat
surrounding an RNA or DNA core of genetic material.
Visible light That part of the electromagnetic spectrum visible to humans and
lying between the infrared and ultraviolet parts of the spectrum.
Weathering The chemical and physical processes that disaggregate a rock into
its component mineral grains or crystals.
White dwarf Evolutionary end-point of stars that have initial masses less than
about eight times the solar mass.
Xanthine An organic compound, the purine C5H4N4O2. (For chemical struc-
ture, see chapter 3.)
Index

ALH84001 meteorite, 36, 185 Carbonaceous chondrite. See

Alpha-helix (-helix), 126–27, 129, Carbonaceous meteorite
130, 132, 185 Carbonaceous meteorite, 14, 47, 103,
Amino acids, 19, 84–92, 185 188
prebiotic synthesis of, 19, 84–92 Carlin, R., 10
Apex chert, 33, 171–73, 185 Chemical evolution, 15–20, 32–33, 46,
Archaea (archaeal domain), 161–65, 103–4
171, 186 Chevreul, M.E., 80
Arrhenius, S. A., 14–15, 81 Chirality, 61–62, 73–74, 86, 99,
Ascoli, A., 80 130–31, 134, 140, 151, 188
Asteroid, 26, 34, 47, 58, 60, 103, 186 CITROENS, 9, 188
Asteroidal belt, 30, 60, 186 Clay–catalyzed synthesis of RNA,
Atmosphere, 18, 66–69, 72, 83, 90, 197 117–29
neutral, 69, 72, 90, 197 Clay mineral, 119–24, 131–33, 135–36,
nonreducing, 69, 90 144, 151, 189
-ocean system, 66–69 and polypeptide formation, 131–33,
reducing, 18, 67, 69, 72, 83 135
Autotrophic origin of life, 81, 88, 105–7 Clay World, 119–20, 151, 189
CNO cycle, 28, 189
Bacteria (bacterial domain), 161–65, Coacervate, 16, 189
171, 186 Comet, 24–26, 30–34, 51, 58–60, 108,
Bakh, A. N., 84 189, 195, 198
Baylor College of Medicine, 21 Hale–Bopp, 32, 58–59
Berezlius, J. J., 80, 103 Halley’s, 24–25, 32
Bernal, J. D., 15, 17, 73 Hyakutake, 32, 59
Beta–sheet (–sheet), 126, 128–30, 132, Kuiper belt, 31, 59–60, 195
137, 186 long period, 60, 189
Biemann, K., 35 Oort cloud, 31, 58, 60, 198
Big Bang, 26–28, 32, 46, 48 short period, 59–60, 189
Biogenic element, 8, 10–11, 28, 32, Corliss, J. B., 100–101, 105
48–50, 187 Cosmological evolution, 25–29,
Butlerov, A. M., 80–81, 84 40–41
Butlerov (Butlerow) synthesis, 22, 84, and origin of life, 25–29
98, 187 and peace, 40–41
Butlerow synthesis. See Butlerov synthesis Creationism, 12–13
Crick, F., 10, 14, 19
Cairns–Smith, G., 11, 151 Cyanobacterium, 34, 167–68, 171,
Calvin, M., 18, 21 174, 189

205
206 Index

Darwin, C., 17, 20–21, 26, 34, 78–83 Hubble Space Telescope (HST), 25, 47,
De Duve, C., 105 51, 193
Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), 190 Hydrothermal vent, 69–70, 100–102,
DNA. See Deoxyribonucleic acid 108, 194
Domain, 161–65, 186, 190–91 and origin of life, 69, 70, 100–102,
archaeal, 161–65, 186 108
bacterial, 161–65, 186 Hyperthermophile, 70, 101, 194
eucaryal, 161–65, 191
Drake, F., 39 IDP. See Interplanetary dust particle
Duró, E., 22 Inflationary model, 26–27, 194
Dwarf star, 48, 191 Infrared Space Observatory (ISO), 51,
Dyson, F., 11 194
Interplanetary dust particle (IDP), 60,
Eccles, J., 13 71–72, 103–4, 108, 194
Eschenmoser, A., 99, 151–52 Interstellar cloud, 14, 26, 29, 32, 48–51,
Eucarya (eucaryal domain), 161–165, 53–56, 194
191 Interstellar dust. See Interstellar cloud
Europa, 35–36, 191 Interstellar medium. See Interstellar
Evolution, 13, 15–20, 22, 25–29, 32, cloud
34, 46–47, 103–4, 144 Isotopic evidence of photosynthesis,
chemical, 15–20, 22, 32, 46, 103–4 167–70
cosmological, 25–29, 47 strengths of and weaknesses of, 170
Darwinian, 13, 17, 33–34, 46, 144 Isua Supracrustal Group, 68–69, 170,
geophysical, 64–66 174, 178

Exobiology, 8, 191 Javok, W. A., 80

Extinction event, 34, 104, 175, 178
Extrasolar planets, 37–38 Kant, I., 55
Extremeophile, 162, 191 Kauffman, S., 105
Kornberg, A., 19
Flammarion, C., 20–21 Kossel, A., 80
Formose reaction. See Butlerov synthesis Kuiper belt, 31, 195
Fossil evidence of ancient microbes, Küsler, W., 80
170–74
strengths of and weaknesses of, 174 Laplace, P. S., 55
Last Common Ancestor (LCA), 101,
Galaxy, 26, 32, 39, 50, 192, 196 141, 161–66, 195
Milky Way, 39, 192, 196 LCA. See Last Common Ancestor
Gene copying (gene duplication), 177–78, Levene, P. T., 80
192 Life, 7–10, 34–39, 78–109, 104,
Genetic takeover, 151–54, 192 113–16, 159–60, 175, 178
Giant planet, 47, 192 basics of, 159–60
Gilbert, W., 105 beyond the Solar System, 37–39
Greenhouse, 57, 66–67, 193 definitions of, 7–9, 113–16
effect, 193 on Europa, 35–36
gas, 66–67, 193 formation of building blocks of,
Grobstein, C., 9 78–109
Grunberg–Manago, M., 19 on Mars, 35–36
mass extinctions of, 34, 104, 175,
Haldane, J. B. S., 15–16 178
Halley’s comet, 24–25 nature of, 10
Harvey, R. B., 82, 102 “Life Cloud,” 14
Herrera, A. L., 82 “Life on the Rocks,” 117–20
Heterotrophic hypothesis, 81–84, 193 Löb, W., 20–22, 81, 84
Heterotrophic origin of life, 81–84
Hooker, J. D., 78–79 Main sequence star, 29, 195
Hoyle, F., 14–15 Mars, 35–36, 57, 60, 64
Index 207

Matthei, H., 19–20 hydrothermal vents and, 69–70,

Mayor, M., 38 100–102, 108
Mendeleev, D., 15–17 impact frustration of, 174–76
Metabolism, 7–8, 82, 114–15, 154, 160, peace and, 40–41
167, 196 polypeptides and, 126–36
Metabolist argument, 154 and RNA World, 9, 98, 105, 120–35,
Meteorite, 14, 18–19, 26, 30, 36, 40, 142–54
46, 58, 60–64, 88, 103, 108, and Thioester World, 105, 203
175–76, 185, 188, 196 what and when of, 1–6, 158–78
ALH84001, 36, 185
carbonaceous, 14, 188 Oró, J., 92–94, 140
Murchison, 18–19, 30, 40, 61, 63, Oscillatoriaceae, 173, 198
88, 103, 196 Ozone, 38, 88, 173, 198
Miescher, F., 80
Milky Way Galaxy, 39, 192, 196 Paleobiology, 167, 178, 198
Miller, S. L., 18–19, 21–23, 67, 85–88, Panspermia, 14, 46, 81, 198
91, 140 Pasteur, L., 13, 81
Molecular Biologist’s Dream, 142–54, Peptide nucleic acid (PNA), 152–54, 199
196 Pflüger, E., 22, 81
problems of, 150–54 Photosynthesis, 11, 82, 88, 167–70
Moreno, A., 8 isotopic evidence of, 167–70
Morrison, D., 39 Planetesimal, 30, 56–58, 199
Muller, H. J., 82 PNA. See Peptide nucleic acid
Murchison meteorite, 18–19, 30, 40, 61, Polymer synthesis, 116–17, 113–37
63, 88, 103, 196 general considerations, 116–17
Ponnamperuma, C., 15
Neumann, A., 80 Pre–amino acid, 136
Neutral atmosphere. See Atmosphere Prebiotic synthesis, 48–50, 84–100,
Niremberg, M., 19–20 119–36, 144, 151
Nonreducing atmosphere. See of amino acids, 84–92
Atmosphere of biogenic elements, 48–50
and clay minerals, 119–24, 131–33,
Ochoa, S., 19–21, 22 135–36, 144, 151
Oliver, B., 39 of nucleic acid bases, 92–97
Oort cloud, 31, 58, 60, 198 of polypeptides, 126–36
Oparin, A. I., 10, 15–18, 71, 82–84, of RNA, 120–26
105 of sugars, 98–100
Orgel, L. E., 9, 14 Precambrian Eon, 166, 171, 200
Origin, 25, 29, 48–52, 56–58, 140–55 Pre–protein, 116, 200
of biogenic elements, 48–50 Pre–RNA, 100, 116, 121, 125, 136, 200
of biological information, 140–55 p-RNA. See Pyranosyl-ribonucleic acid
of Earth–Moon system, 25, 29 Proto–Earth, 30, 200
of planets, 56–58 Protogalaxy, 27, 200
of Solar System, 50–52 Proton–proton chain, 28, 200
Origin of life, 1–20, 25–29, 40–41, Protoplanet, 25, 56–58, 200
69–70, 81–84, 88, 98, 100–102, Protoplanetary disk, 25, 200
105–8, 113–37, 142–54, 158–78, Proto–Sun, 30, 53, 55, 200
189, 192, 203 Proust, J. L., 80, 92
autotrophic, 81, 88, 105–7 Pyranosyl–ribonucleic acid (p–RNA),
beliefs and hypotheses on, 12–20 152–54
biopolymers and, 113–37
chemolithotrophic, 106 Queloz, D., 38
and Clay World, 119–20, 151, 189
and cosmological evolution, 25–29 Racemic mixtures, 61–62, 73–74, 86,
and genetic takeover, 151–54, 192 99, 130–31, 134, 140, 151
heterotrophic, 81–84 Red giant, 48, 201
historical understanding of, 7–15 Reducing atmosphere. See Atmosphere
208 Index

Ribozyme, 97, 115, 142, 148–49, 201 Tarter, J., 39

RNA World, 9, 98, 105, 120–35, Template-directed synthesis, 123–25,
142–54, 201 143–50, 203
Thermophile, 102, 163–65, 203
Sagan, C., 7, 10–11, 34, 39 Thioesther World, 105, 203
Salk Institute, 146 Tholin, 104, 203
Sanger, F., 19 Titan, 31, 203
Schrödinger, E., 10, 13 Tree of Life, 160–66, 178, 203
Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence strengths and weaknesses of, 165, 166
(SETI), 38–39, 202 Triple-alpha (triple–) process, 28, 204
SETI. See Search for Extraterrestrial Troland, L., 82
Intelligence
Shoemaker–Levy 9 (SL–9), 23, 32, 34, 202 Ultraviolet light, 88, 173, 204
SL–9. See Shoemaker–Levy 9 Universal Tree of Life. See Tree of Life
Solar nebula, 51–56, 65–68, 197, 202 University of Houston, 21, 25
Solar (stellar) wind, 55, 202 Urey, H. C., 18, 85
Spontaneous generation, 13, 202 UV light. See Ultraviolet light
Stars, 26, 29, 32, 48, 195, 201, 204
main sequence, 29, 195 Viking Mission, 7, 35–36
red giant, 48, 201 Virus, 9–10, 204
white dwarf, 48, 204
Strecker, A., 80 Wächterhäuser, G., 105–7
Strecker synthesis, 81, 88–90, 107, Watson, J. D., 10, 19
131, 202 White dwarf, 48, 204
Sugar, 98–100, 203 Wickramasinghe, C., 14–15
prebiotic synthesis of, 98–100 Wöhler, F., 22, 80–81, 103
Supernova, 27, 30, 32, 48–49, 203 Wollaston, W. H., 80
 Compositor: TechBooks
Text: 10/13 Sabon
Display: Sabon
Printer and Binder: Edwards Brothers, Inc.